Jio Platforms set a price range of $11.19 to $11.76 per share for an IPO of up to 270 million newly issued shares that could raise $3.2 billion, TechCrunch reported from an October 14 Reliance Industries exchange filing. Jio sells mobile service to Indian consumers and businesses, then uses that network as the base for home broadband, cloud and other digital products.
That distribution base is unusually large. TechCrunch said Jio had more than 524 million subscribers as of March 31, making it India’s largest telecom operator. The network launched in 2016 and initially attracted users with free data and low-cost plans, although its prices have since moved closer to competitors’ rates.
Reliance describes a broader ecosystem spanning media, commerce, financial services and education. Jio also works with Google on an affordable smartphone and consumer and enterprise 5G. Its Meta collaboration is intended to connect WhatsApp with JioMart so small merchants can use payment and commerce tools; Reliance’s page describes that intended workflow but doesn’t establish merchant adoption.
The business is already profitable at considerable scale. For the quarter ended in June, revenue increased nearly 12% from a year earlier to about $4.1 billion, while net profit rose 9% to roughly $816 million, according to prospectus figures cited by TechCrunch. The top of the proposed range would value Jio at approximately $108.3 billion.
All shares in the offer are new, so the transaction would fund Jio rather than provide liquidity to selling shareholders. The prospectus earmarks up to $2.9 billion to repay debt at telecom subsidiary Reliance Jio Infocomm, with the remainder available for general corporate purposes. Subscription is scheduled for October 21 through October 23, following anchor-investor bidding on October 19.