Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio Platforms is gearing up to file regulatory papers for a Mumbai listing. This move is anticipated to be the biggest-ever stock offering in India.
💰 THE DEAL METRICS:
- The Valuation & Size: Investment bank Jefferies estimated Reliance Jio’s valuation at $180 billion in November. Sources stated in January that the IPO could be worth up to $4 billion.
- The Structure: The company has hired 17 banks to manage its offering. The IPO will raise no new funds from the public. It will solely allow exits for some shareholders.
- The Cap Table: Reliance Industries holds a 66.43% stake in Jio Platforms. In 2020, Jio Platforms raised over $20.5 billion from 13 global investors for a roughly 33% equity stake. Marquee investors include Meta (9.9% stake), Alphabet/Google (7.7% stake), KKR, General Atlantic, Silver Lake, and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.
📈 THE BUSINESS BEHEMOTH:
- The Scale: Reliance Jio is the world’s second-largest telecom company by users, trailing only China Mobile. Its telecom business, Reliance Jio Infocomm, is India’s largest player with over 500 million subscribers. Jio currently holds a roughly 60% share of India’s data traffic.
- The Financials: Operating revenue for the financial year ending March 2025 stood at $13.65 billion, with a profit after tax of $2.8 billion. The telecom business accounts for 90% of this revenue, having grown 13% annually since 2020-21.
- The Evolution: Jio Platforms has diversified beyond telecom into AI, cloud, app development, and enterprise network services. In 2023, Nvidia announced an AI partnership with Reliance to develop language models and cloud infrastructure.
💡 THE BOTTOM LINE: Ambani stated in 2019 that Jio would move toward a listing within five years, but plans were later delayed in 2025. Now, the long-delayed IPO is officially advancing. The listing of this tech and telecom giant—led by CEO Kiran Thomas and chaired by Mukesh Ambani—marks a massive milestone for India’s digital ecosystem.
👇 Capital Markets & Tech Professionals: With Jefferies pegging the valuation at $180 billion, will the pure Offer-for-Sale structure dampen retail enthusiasm, or is Jio’s dominance of 60% of India’s data traffic too massive to ignore?