Mumbai, Jul 15 (IANS): Reliance Industries' (RIL) foray into the digital commerce business is expected to be a major driver for the stocks of the company, a report by Kotak Institutional Equities said.

It noted that RIL's leadership in connectivity and retail businesses and recent strategic partnership with Facebook will enable it to further expand its presence in India's digital ecosystem, which can create significant value in the long run.

"We expect the foray in digital commerce business to be the next big driver of RIL stock, with the valuation of legacy O2C and digital services segments broadly established in a reasonable range for now," said the report.

Kotak has retained 'BUY' rating on the stock, raising its SoTP-based fair value to Rs 2,150. Of late, RIL shares have been on a bull run and on Wednesday, touched a new high of Rs 1,978.50.

"The report noted that RIL's well-established connectivity business under Jio Platforms, formidable offline retail footprint under Reliance Retail, proposed foray in the digital commerce segment under JioMart and recent strategic partnership with Facebook, have propelled it to the forefront of consumer facing digital ecosystem opportunity in India,a it said.

It noted that RIL's "ever-expanding" portfolio of products and services to target the 4Cs of the digital ecosystem -- connectivity, commerce, content and currency -- will enable it to leverage the sizeable traffic across its consumer-facing verticals, generate new revenue streams and create significant value in the long run.