A listing that sets the scale
Jio Platforms, the telecom and digital arm of Mukesh Ambani's Reliance, rose 21% in its trading debut on Wednesday. The stock opened at ₹1,358 (about $14) against an IPO price of ₹1,119 (around $12), valuing Jio at roughly ₹12.5 trillion — about $132 billion — and making it India's second-most valuable listed company after its parent, Reliance Industries, at around ₹16 trillion ($169 billion).
The offering raised $3.2 billion and was oversubscribed 22.19 times. More than 13.8 million people applied, drawing over $77 billion in bids: India's largest and most subscribed IPO on record. The sale ran from 21 to 22 October and consisted entirely of new shares. No existing investor sold, Meta and Google included.
The re-rating, in numbers
When Meta and Google bought in during 2020 — $5.7 billion and $4.5 billion respectively — Jio was valued at up to ₹4.91 trillion, about $65 billion at the time. That $65 billion became $132 billion without the underlying business doubling at the same pace. In the financial year to March 2026, Jio made ₹300.5 billion (about $3.2 billion) in profit on revenue of ₹1.47 trillion (around $15.5 billion), both up roughly 15% year on year. In the June quarter, revenue grew nearly 12% and profit 9%.
The proceeds are earmarked: up to ₹275 billion (about $2.9 billion) will repay debt at subsidiary Reliance Jio Infocomm, with the rest going to general corporate purposes. Jio carried ₹613.7 billion (around $6.5 billion) in total borrowings as of 30 June. The IPO is therefore a deleveraging event as much as a growth financing.
From price disruptor to platform
Jio entered a crowded Indian telecom market in 2016 with free data and cheap tariffs, taking customers from Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and state-owned BSNL. It is now the country's largest operator; Akash Ambani, its managing director, says its platforms serve more than 540 million customers. Prices are now broadly in line with rivals, and the business has expanded into broadband, cloud and AI.
Akash, the eldest son, has taken a larger role as his father hands responsibility to the next generation. At the listing ceremony he set out the ambition: "My dream is that one day, when the world counts its great technology companies, one of them will be from India, and that company will be called Jio Platforms Limited."
What the debut proves — and what it hides
For Indian capital markets, the signal is that the country's largest and most oversubscribed listing can pull household savings into equities at scale, and that a domestic tech champion can be priced at a global multiple. For Reliance, the valuation weight shifts further onto the telecom subsidiary while the parent stays richly valued.
The opening pop, however, is a re-rating, not an operating result. At roughly $132 billion against $15.5 billion of revenue and mid-teens growth, the premium to global telecom peers cannot be justified by the core business alone; investors are paying for the option on AI, cloud and broadband. Whether that option is real will not be settled on the first day of trading.
