Jio Platforms IPO: The ₹1.47 Lakh Cr Network Going Public
- Posted: 16 Oct 2026, 1:30 PM IST
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In 2016, India paid per megabyte for data.
Today, Jio carries around 60% of the country’s wireless data traffic.
Now the company that rewired Indian connectivity is heading to Dalal Street, in what could be one of India’s biggest IPOs.
Jio Platforms is the holding company for Reliance’s digital business and was incorporated in 2019.
Its operating subsidiary, Reliance Jio Infocomm, holds the telecom licence and spectrum.
The business runs 4G and 5G mobile services, home broadband, and enterprise services.
It also offers digital products like JioTV+, JioSaavn and JioAICloud.
The scale is hard to ignore.
As of June 30, 2026, Jio had 533.3 million customers, of which 284.9 million were on 5G.
Its JioFiber and JioAirFiber base stood at 28.6 million, making it the largest fixed broadband provider in India. The network runs on 3,60,537 towers and covers more than 99% of the population with wireless broadband.
Now, let’s look at the IPO itself.
It is a fresh issue of up to 27 crore shares, with an issue size of about ₹30,213 crore.
This would make it India’s largest IPO, ahead of Hyundai Motor India in 2024.
Even so, it is a small slice.
The offer is only about 2.9% of the post-issue equity, so 97% of the company stays with existing holders.
Reliance Industries holds 66.43%. Meta’s affiliate holds 9.98%, and Google holds 7.73%, followed by investors like PIF, KKR, Vista, Silver Lake and Mubadala.
Since there is no offer for sale, all of the money goes to the company.
Around ₹27,500 crore will be used to prepay borrowings of Reliance Jio Infocomm, mostly foreign currency term loans. The rest goes to general corporate purposes, capped at 25% of the gross proceeds.
The reason is clear in the numbers.
Finance costs rose from ₹4,048 crore in FY24 to ₹8,653 crore in FY26, nearly doubling in two years.
Jio also has borrowings of ₹70,781 crore and owes about ₹1.05 lakh crore in deferred spectrum payments. Paying down debt is the most direct way to ease this pressure.
The business behind the debt is strong.
In FY26, revenue from operations was ₹1,46,885 crore, up from ₹1,28,218 crore in FY25.
EBITDA rose to ₹76,255 crore with a margin of 51.91%. Profit after tax stood at ₹30,049 crore.
Between FY24 and FY26, revenue grew at a CAGR of 15.8% and EBITDA at 17.8%.
The trend has continued into Q1 FY27, where the EBITDA margin improved further to 53.26%.
A key growth lever here is ARPU, or average revenue per user.
It rose from ₹206.2 per month in FY25 to ₹215.6 in Q1 FY27. Data use per customer also climbed from 33.6 GB to 43.7 GB a month.
As more users move to 5G and fixed broadband, they use more data and spend more.
Jio also stacks up well against its peers.
It has the largest customer base at 533.3 million, compared to 491.9 million for Airtel India and 193.1 million for Vodafone Idea.
It also leads in monthly data use at 43.7 GB per user and has the lowest monthly churn at 1.61%. Airtel’s churn is 2.59%, and Vodafone Idea’s is 3.80%.
On financials, Jio has the highest revenue at ₹1,46,885 crore, ahead of Airtel India at ₹1,40,373 crore. Airtel leads on EBITDA and margin, at ₹82,193 crore and 58.55%.
So where could the next phase of growth come from?
Home broadband is one area.
Fixed broadband penetration in India is about 21% and is projected to reach around 46% by FY31. Jio captured 67.56% of net fixed broadband additions in FY26.
Enterprises and SMEs are another segment.
India has 79 million micro, small and medium enterprises, but digital services adoption among them is under 3%.
Jio also plans to offer its technology stack to operators abroad through partnerships and managed services.
Of course, the story is not without questions.
The IPO will be the largest India has seen, and expectations will be high. The company still carries significant debt and spectrum obligations.
Still, the larger picture is clear.
Jio started by building India’s largest digital network. It is now expanding that network into a broader digital platform.
The financials support this scale, with strong revenue, healthy EBITDA margins, rising free cash and falling leverage.
For investors, the key question is simple. How much of this future growth is already reflected in the IPO valuation?
Sources:
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Vishwa has spent 10+ years across fintech and FMCG doing what most people miss, connecting the dots, catching trends before they trend, and finding the angle nobody else thought to ask about.
At Kotak Neo, she drives content strategy for neoshorts, Kotak News Desk, and Investing Guide, turning market noise into something worth reading.
When she's not decoding markets, she trades charts for canvases, chasing art, painting, and architecture across cities she's yet to explore.
