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Jio Platforms sets ₹1,065 to ₹1,119 price band for what could be India's biggest IPO
Reliance's digital arm will sell up to 270 million new shares, raising about ₹30,200 crore at the top of the band and valuing the company near ₹10.3 lakh crore.
Key points
- Jio Platforms has fixed a price band of ₹1,065 to ₹1,119 a share for its initial public offering.
- Public bidding runs from 21 to 23 October, with anchor investors bidding on 19 October.
- Up to ₹27,500 crore of the money raised will go towards repaying debt at Reliance Jio Infocomm.
Jio Platforms, the telecom and digital arm of Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, has set a price band of ₹1,065 to ₹1,119 a share for an initial public offering that is on course to be the largest India has seen.
Reliance disclosed the band in a stock exchange filing on Wednesday. Jio will issue up to 270 million new shares, about 2.93% of its enlarged equity. At the top of the band that brings in roughly ₹30,200 crore and values the company at about ₹10.3 lakh crore. Even at the bottom of the range the issue would raise about ₹28,755 crore, more than the ₹27,870 crore Hyundai Motor India collected in October 2024, the current record.
The timetable
Anchor investors will bid on 19 October. The issue opens to the public on 21 October and closes on 23 October, with trading expected to begin on 28 October. Jio has hired 19 banks for the sale, among them Kotak Mahindra Capital, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Axis Capital, BNP Paribas and Citigroup.
Up to ₹2,500 crore of the offer is set aside for eligible shareholders of Reliance Industries. Another ₹500 crore is reserved for employees, who will get a discount of ₹54 a share.
Where the money goes
The prospectus says up to ₹27,500 crore will be used to repay debt at Reliance Jio Infocomm, the group’s mobile operator. The rest is earmarked for general corporate purposes.
The valuation is lower than the roughly ₹11 lakh crore the market had talked about earlier in the year, after a recent sell-off in shares cooled expectations. It is still more than double the ₹4.91 lakh crore at which Jio was valued in 2020, when it raised more than $20 billion from global investors. Meta put in $5.7 billion that year and Google committed $4.5 billion.
The business behind the listing
Jio was launched in 2016 with free data and cheap plans that shook up Indian telecom. Its prices are now in line with rivals’, and it had more than 52.4 crore subscribers on 31 March, ahead of Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and state-owned BSNL. It has since added home broadband, cloud services and other digital businesses.
The prospectus shows revenue of ₹39,170 crore in the April to June quarter, up nearly 12% on a year earlier, and net profit of ₹7,760 crore, up 9%.
A noisy backdrop
The listing comes as Elon Musk steps up his criticism of Ambani, accusing him of trying to keep Starlink out of India. Indian authorities have rejected Musk’s claims. Jio and Airtel both signed deals with Musk’s SpaceX in March 2025 to distribute Starlink’s satellite internet in India, subject to regulatory approval.
Final terms, including the exact number of shares sold, will be fixed when the book closes later this month.