Industry Odisha Bureau, Oct 15: Jio Platforms plans to raise ₹30,200 crore through new shares. Investors will weigh its subscriber lead against modest pricing power. AI and satellite ventures remain largely unproven.
A decade after free calls shook Indian telecom, Jio is heading to the stock market. Its listing will test a different proposition. The question now is whether size can deliver superior returns.
Jio’s 2016 debut offered free voice calls and six months of free 4G. It had skipped 3G altogether. Aircel and Reliance Communications later folded, while Vodafone and Idea merged in 2018. More than 10 operators have since shrunk to four.
Consumers gained most from the upheaval. Counterpoint Research estimates monthly data use per person climbed from about 1GB to nearly 26GB. Smartphones made up 154 million of roughly 200 million handsets sold in 2025.
Scale, however, has not bought pricing power. Jio ended August with 508.43 million wireless subscribers, according to Trai. Bharti Airtel trailed at 491.60 million, with Vodafone Idea on 199.57 million. Yet Airtel earned ₹264 per user each month by June, against Jio’s ₹215.6. Vodafone Idea managed ₹195.
The listing itself is cautiously priced. Jio seeks about ₹30,200 crore, or $3.2 billion, at ₹1,069–1,119 per share. Reported valuations range between $107 billion and $115 billion. Earlier hopes had stretched to $120–140 billion.
All 270 million shares on offer are newly issued. The cash therefore flows to Jio, not its owners. Kotak Mahindra Capital and Morgan Stanley India were first hired for an offer for sale. Under that structure, existing investors would have sold stakes. Jio later chose a purely primary issue instead. A large portion is expected to prepay Reliance Jio Infocomm’s borrowings.
Recent results show both momentum and strain. First-quarter FY27 revenue from operations rose 12% year-on-year to ₹39,173 crore. Net profit grew 9.2% to ₹7,764 crore. Sequentially, however, profit slipped 2.15%. Depreciation and finance costs climbed as new 5G assets went live.
For Reliance Industries investors, the gains are indirect. RIL holds 66.43% of Jio Platforms but receives no sale proceeds. Its shareholders get no Jio shares either. Analysts estimate RIL’s stock trades at about a 36% discount to its Jio stake’s value. A separate market price could sharpen that gap’s visibility without closing it. Rajesh Baheti, an independent investor, said some shareholders funded telecom without benefiting.
Reliance hopes artificial intelligence will power the next phase. Reliance Intelligence, a 70:30 venture with Meta launched in August 2025, targets enterprise products. The JioBrain platform pairs AI with 5G to detect anomalies and automate tasks. Whether such services earn meaningful revenue remains unproven.
Satellite internet is the newest battleground. Jio Satellite, Starlink and Eutelsat OneWeb hold licences and await final clearances. Jio plans 1,600 low-Earth-orbit satellites to reach remote areas. Its draft prospectus highlighted Starlink’s steep overseas pricing. Elon Musk has blamed Starlink’s delays on bias, a claim the government called baseless.
The same filing lists around 60 risk factors. Customer resistance, regulation and competition could all cap tariff increases. Jio has already won the market. Its next challenge is earning more from it.
