Jio Platforms listing in less than 24 hours: History in the making; what Akash Ambani told investors

Market participants, from institutional investors to retail investors, are glued to their screens as Jio Platforms prepares to make its much-anticipated stock market debut on the NSE and BSE on Wednesday, October 28. After commanding unprecedented attention through its mega IPO, all eyes are now on how the market will receive one of India’s most closely watched listings.

The issue became the first among India’s mega IPOs to achieve full subscription within just 100 minutes of opening and the first global offering to cross the one-crore application mark. The milestone list is extraordinary — and the countdown to its market debut has only heightened the anticipation.

• Jio Platforms is betting that its technology, artificial intelligence and cloud ambitions will drive growth beyond telecom, Akash Ambani said on Tuesday, October 20, pitching the Reliance Industries unit as a technology company ahead of what is India's biggest-ever IPO.

"There is no either-or at Jio: the network is our technology," Ambani said in an interview with PTI, highlighting the company's in-house 5G core, cloud-native radio access network and software platform serving 533.3 million customers.

"Connectivity was the first product we built on that platform. Digital services, AI and cloud are what we are layering on top of it now," he said.

• Ambani said Jio's growth opportunities extend across mobile services, to home broadband and enterprise digital solutions. Around 26 crore Indians still use 2G services, while fixed broadband reaches only about 21% of the country's households, he said.

Jio accounted for 67.56% of India's net fixed-broadband additions in FY26, while digital-services adoption among the country's more than 7.9 crore micro, small and medium enterprises remains below 3%, he added.

"We build for more customers, deeper engagement and more services per customer," Ambani said, noting that Jio users already consume an average of 43.7 GB of data a month. "Tariffs are one part of a much bigger story."

The IPO is also intended to strengthen Jio's balance sheet. Up to ₹27,500 crore of the net proceeds will be used to repay or prepay borrowings at Reliance Jio Infocomm, its telecom subsidiary.

• Ambani said Jio's net debt-to-EBITDA ratio declined to 0.36 times in FY26 from 0.88 times in FY24, adding that the offering would provide greater financial flexibility for investment in 5G, broadband, AI, cloud and enterprise services.

Jio is also seeking to expand its technology business beyond India through partnerships with local operators.

Ambani said the company was evaluating an indigenous satellite constellation and ground-station network, alongside partnerships with global satellite providers, particularly to connect remote areas.

• At the top of its ₹1,065-to-₹1,119 price band, Jio is valued at roughly $108 billion. The valuation is well short of the more than $150 billion that the company had reportedly hoped for when it filed its draft prospectus in June.

The issue was a fresh offering of up to 27 crore shares with no offer-for-sale component, so existing shareholders did not sell.

It is about 14% smaller than the roughly ₹35,000 crore indicated in the draft papers.

Even so, it exceeded Hyundai Motor India's ₹27,870 crore IPO of 2024 and became India's largest by value.

Succession and Future Outlook

Jio signed a partnership last year to sell SpaceX's Starlink equipment in India, but it also has its own low-orbit satellite business.

No applicant has received a final licence for satellite broadband in India.

This month, Musk accused Mukesh Ambani of using his influence to block Starlink's entry, calling him "the real boss of India".

Jio said in a statement that it welcomes competition in satellite communications, including Starlink.

The listing also forms part of succession planning.

Mukesh Ambani is dividing his roughly $170 billion empire into three businesses: Akash on Jio, Isha on retail, and Anant on energy.

Akash's pitch draws on Reliance's history. His grandfather built Reliance from a textiles enterprise into a diversified industrial group. His father, Mukesh Ambani, expanded it into refining, petrochemicals, retail, and telecommunications, transforming Jio into one of the largest mobile operators in the world.

Jio's public listing would give investors direct access to the group's digital and telecom businesses, which have so far operated within Reliance Industries (RIL).