MUMBAI: Indian business tycoon Mukesh Ambani overtook Alibaba group founder Jack Ma on Friday to become richest person in Asia. As Reliance Industry Ltd (RIL) share rose 1.6 per cent, the total wealth of Ambani hit $44.3 billion.

Chinese e-commerce giant Ma’s wealth stood at $44 billion at close of trade on Thursday in the US, where the company is listed.

This year Ambani has added another $4 billion to his existing emperor. RIL has reaped huge benefit from its telecom venture Jio along with doubling petrochemicals capacity too. Moreover, he unveiled plans to leverage his 215 million telecom subscribers to expand his e-commerce offerings earlier this month.

He said Reliance saw its "biggest growth opportunity in creating a hybrid, online-to-offline new commerce platform," involving the group's retail and telecom business.

“We need to broaden our horizon of expectation with Reliance,” a Mumbai-based analyst at Antique Stock Broking Nitin Tiwari said. “They are in for something really transformational,” he added.

On the other hand, Alibaba Goup’s Ma has reportedly lost $1.4 billion in 2018.