Jio shares jump 21% in debut after record India IPO

Jio Platforms, the telecom and digital-services arm of billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, jumped 21% on its stock-market debut this Wednesday, after raising $3.2 billion in an IPO that pulled in bids worth more than $77 billion from investors — India’s largest and most subscribed offering on record. Shares opened at ₹1,358 (about $14), up from the ₹1,119 (around $12) IPO price, valuing Jio at about ₹12.5 trillion (around $131.9 billion), second only to parent Reliance, worth about ₹16 trillion (around $168.6 billion). By comparison, Jio’s valuation back in 2020, when Meta and Google first invested, reached only up to ₹4.91 trillion — about $65 billion at the time.

The offering ran October 21-22 and pulled bids equal to 22.19 times the shares offered, with more than 13.8 million applicants — the biggest subscriber count for any Indian stock sale. Jio broke into India’s telecom sector in 2016 with free data and rock-bottom prices, quickly pulling customers from rivals Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and state-run BSNL to become the country’s largest operator, now serving more than 540 million customers, managing director Akash Ambani said at Wednesday’s ceremony.

“My dream is that one day, when the world counts its great technology companies, one of them will be from India, and that company will be called Jio Platforms Limited,” said Akash Ambani, Mukesh Ambani’s eldest son and Jio’s managing director.

For the fiscal year that ended in March 2026, Jio posted ₹300.5 billion (about $3.2 billion) of profit on ₹1.47 trillion (around $15.5 billion) of revenue, both up roughly 15% year over year; in the June quarter, revenue climbed nearly 12% and profit rose 9%.

Jio plans to put up to ₹275 billion (about $2.9 billion) of the IPO proceeds toward debt repayment at its telecom unit, Reliance Jio Infocomm; the company carried ₹613.7 billion (around $6.5 billion) in total borrowings as of June 30. Meta and Google — both American investors — first backed Jio in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, investing $5.7 billion and $4.5 billion respectively; neither sold shares in this IPO, which consisted entirely of newly issued stock.

Why it matters

The record demand — more than $77 billion in bids and over 13.8 million applicants — signals strong investor appetite for India’s largest telecom and digital-services operator, just as Akash Ambani positions Jio to compete as a global technology company, not just a domestic one.