Sensex rises; Reliance Industries hits 9-1/2-year high on Jio, results

By Krishna V Kurup

REUTERS - Indian shares rose on Friday, with Reliance Industries Ltd climbing as much as 3.9 percent to a more than 9-1/2-year high after posting strong quarterly results and announcing a low-cost, 4G-enabled phone.

Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani announced on Friday the launch of the device - aimed to draw tens of millions of low-income users to its telecoms venture Jio's service - a day after the oil-to-telecoms conglomerate posted "surprisingly robust" results, fuelled by improved refining margins.

Shares in Reliance rose as much as 3.9 pct to 1,588 rupees, their highest since January 2008, but its telecom rivals slumped on worries about the intensifying competition in the sector, with Bharti Airtel Ltd and Idea Cellular Ltd down as much as 4.1 percent and 7.3 percent, respectively.

The Reliance earnings, combined with Wipro Ltd's $1.71 billion share buy-back plan and upbeat results, helped lift investor optimism.

"Sentiment is now turning positive towards large-cap companies, with corporate results being fairly decent so far, and that is one of the key drivers for the market," said Siddharth Purohit, senior research analyst at Angel Broking.

The broader NSE Nifty was up 0.15 percent at 9,888.60 as of 0657 GMT, while the benchmark BSE Sensex was up 0.17 percent at 31,957.99.

Wipro jumped up as much as 8.1 percent to their highest since April 2016 and was the top gainer on the Nifty IT index, which was up 2 percent.

($1 = 64.3375 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Krishna V Kurup in Bengaluru; Editing by Amrutha Gayathri)