Ten years ago Jio got into Indian mobile by handing out free data and cheap calls. That pulled customers away from Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and state-owned BSNL, and Jio has since become the country's largest telecom operator. On Wednesday its parent, Jio Platforms, started trading on the stock market in Mumbai.
Jio Platforms is billionaire Mukesh Ambani's telecom and digital business, part of his Reliance group. Its shares opened at ₹1,358 on both the National Stock Exchange and BSE, against the ₹1,119 they were sold for in the offer, a gain of about 21% on day one.
How big the sale was
The offer raised about $3.2 billion, all of it in newly issued shares, so no existing owner cashed out. Demand ran far ahead of supply, though the two counts differ. TechCrunch, citing exchange data, says bids came in for 22.19 times the shares on offer, from more than 13.8 million applicants, while HDFC Securities' news desk puts the final figure at 16.36 times.
At the opening price Jio was worth about $132 billion, making it India's second-most valuable listed company after Reliance Industries itself, at about $169 billion.
Who stayed in, and where the money goes
The big outside investors from 2020 kept every share. During the pandemic Meta, then still called Facebook, put in $5.7 billion and Google $4.5 billion, when Jio was valued at up to about $65 billion, roughly half what the market now says it is worth. General Atlantic, Silver Lake and Vista Equity Partners, other early backers, did not sell either.
Most of the new money goes on debt. Up to ₹275 billion, about $2.9 billion, will repay borrowings at Reliance Jio Infocomm, the mobile network itself, and Jio's total borrowings stood at ₹613.7 billion at the end of June.
The business underneath is profitable and still growing. Jio made ₹300.5 billion in profit on ₹1.47 trillion of revenue in the year to March, both about 15% higher than a year earlier.
Akash Ambani, Jio Platforms' managing director, told Wednesday's listing ceremony that its platforms serve more than 540 million customers, and that his dream is for Jio to be counted one day among the world's great technology companies.
