Reliance Jio entered India’s telecom market a decade ago with free voice calls and data prices that forced almost every rival to rethink how mobile internet was sold.
The next milestone looks very different.
Jio Platforms is preparing to raise nearly ₹30,000 crore through an initial public offering that could value the digital business at approximately ₹10.3 lakh crore, or around $108 billion.
The Jio IPO will open for subscription on October 21 and close on October 23, according to the company’s draft prospectus.
For Reliance, it turns one of Mukesh Ambani’s largest corporate bets into a public-market business whose valuation could exceed ₹10 lakh crore.
Jio Has Set a Price Band of ₹1,065-₹1,119
The IPO price band has been fixed between ₹1,065 and ₹1,119 per share.
At the upper end, the implied valuation could reach approximately ₹10.3 lakh crore.
The offering consists of a fresh issue of around 27 crore shares.
Part of the money raised is expected to be used to reduce debt at Reliance Jio Infocomm, while the remainder will support broader corporate purposes.
If the issue reaches close to ₹30,000 crore, it could become the largest IPO India has seen.
That size alone makes the Reliance Jio IPO important for the stock market.
But the valuation also forces investors to answer a bigger question: how much is Jio worth now that it is no longer simply a mobile operator?
The Business Began With a $25 Billion Gamble
Jio was built differently from a traditional telecom expansion.
Reliance spent an estimated $25 billion on spectrum, network infrastructure and technology before the commercial service launched in September 2016.
There was no gradual build-up from one city to another.
The company constructed a large 4G network first, then tried to fill it with customers.
Free voice calls and low-cost data were central to that strategy.
The thinking was that hundreds of millions of Indians would use far more mobile data if the cost of connectivity stopped being a barrier.
That assumption turned out to be broadly correct.
Customers joined quickly, competitors cut tariffs and India’s mobile-data consumption rose sharply.
Cheap Data Changed the Competitive Landscape
Jio’s arrival created enormous pressure across the telecom sector.
Older operators suddenly had to match much lower data tariffs while continuing to carry debt from spectrum purchases and network expansion.
Several companies either exited the market or merged.
The result was a much more concentrated telecom sector, with Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea emerging as the main private operators.
For consumers, the more visible change was price.
Mobile data became dramatically cheaper.
Streaming video, digital payments, online education and app-based services became practical for a much larger number of users.
The rise of Reliance Jio India therefore cannot be separated from the wider expansion of India’s internet economy.
Jio Now Has 268.5 Million 5G Customers
The scale is much larger today.
As of March 31, 2026, Jio had 268.5 million 5G customers, making it the largest digital connectivity player in India on that measure.
Its home broadband business has also grown rapidly.
JioFiber and JioAirFiber together had around 27.1 million subscribers at the end of March, giving the company the largest fixed broadband subscriber base in the country.
That matters for IPO investors because Jio increasingly earns from more than mobile connections.
The business now stretches across wireless connectivity, home broadband, enterprise services and digital applications.
Investors Are Buying Jio Platforms, Not Just the Telecom Operator
This distinction is important.
The listed company will be Jio Platforms.
Reliance Jio Infocomm, which operates the telecom network, sits within that broader structure.
Jio Platforms also houses other digital businesses and technology operations.
That means the Jio Platforms valuation is not being based only on how many mobile users pay a monthly tariff.
Investors are also being asked to value the possibility that the company can sell more services to the enormous customer base it has already built.
That can include broadband, cloud services, enterprise technology, digital platforms and future AI products.
The network becomes the distribution layer for those businesses.
The JioPhone Followed the Same Accessibility Strategy
Reliance applied the same thinking to hardware.
In 2017, the company introduced the JioPhone, a 4G feature phone offered at an effective price of zero against a refundable ₹1,500 deposit, subject to the programme’s conditions.
The device targeted users who could not afford a conventional smartphone but still wanted internet access.
It was another example of the same underlying strategy: reduce the initial cost of getting connected, build scale first and monetise that customer relationship over time.
That approach would be difficult for most companies because the upfront investment is enormous.
Reliance had the balance sheet to try it.
Jio Helped Expand India’s Digital Economy
Jio was not solely responsible for India’s digital expansion.
UPI, Aadhaar-linked services, bank-account growth, cheaper smartphones and the government’s wider digital infrastructure all mattered.
What Jio did was make mobile connectivity far less expensive.
That gave more people a practical way to use those services regularly.
India became the world’s largest mobile-data-consuming market within two years of Jio’s commercial launch.
Online video consumption grew, digital commerce widened and mobile payments became part of everyday life.
The Jio digital ecosystem that investors see today was built on top of that original connectivity expansion.
The Next Phase Will Be Harder
Building a huge subscriber base was one challenge.
Increasing the value generated from every customer is another.
Jio still needs to invest heavily in 5G coverage, home broadband, enterprise systems and new technology.
Artificial intelligence is likely to become an increasingly large part of that strategy as well.
At a valuation above ₹10 lakh crore, investors will expect more than stable telecom revenue.
They will want earnings growth from the wider digital platform.
That creates a higher bar than Jio faced when its main objective was simply adding subscribers.
The IPO Turns a Private Bet Into a Public Test
Mukesh Ambani has previously described Jio as Reliance’s largest risk.
The company spent heavily before knowing whether Indian customers would adopt data at the scale management expected.
A decade later, the risk looks very different.
Jio has the users, infrastructure and market position.
Now public-market investors need to decide whether those assets justify a valuation near $108 billion.
The ₹10 lakh crore Jio valuation reflects what Reliance has already built, but also what investors expect the company to do next.
That is the real significance of the IPO.
Jio began by asking whether Indians would use far more digital connectivity if it became affordable.
The answer was yes.
Its next question is whether that scale can now become an even larger technology and digital-services business.
