Jio Platforms on Thursday formally began its investor outreach for what is set to become India’s largest initial public offering, conveying through the media that the company’s future lies not merely in telecom but in an integrated technology stack spanning connectivity, cloud, devices, software and artificial intelligence.

The media interaction came a day after Jio Platforms filed its red herring prospectus for a fresh issue of up to 27 crore shares. The IPO will open for subscription on October 21 and close on October 23, with anchor-investor bidding on October 19.

At the upper price band of ₹1,119 a share, the issue could raise ₹30,213 crore, valuing Jio Platforms at roughly ₹10.3 lakh crore, or about $108 billion.

A record issue -- and a different structure

Jio's offering will surpass Hyundai Motor India’s ₹27,859-crore IPO of 2024, the current Indian record. Unlike Hyundai and LIC, both of which were entirely offers for sale, Jio’s issue is a 100% fresh issue with no offer for sale.

Also Read: Jio's ₹30,000-crore IPO is a referendum on who pays for India's digital infrastructure

That distinction is central to the company’s pitch: every rupee raised will flow into Jio Platforms rather than to selling shareholders. The company plans to use up to ₹27,500 crore to prepay borrowings at Reliance Jio Infocomm, with the balance for general corporate purposes.

The price band has been fixed at ₹1,065–₹1,119 per share. Investors must bid for a minimum of 12 shares, making the minimum application ₹13,428 at the upper end. Shares are expected to list on the NSE and BSE on October 28.

Akash Ambani’s technology argument

Jio Platforms chairman and Reliance Jio Infocomm chairman Akash Ambani, who addressed the press conference, sought to frame the company as more than India’s largest mobile operator. He said Jio had built its own end-to-end technology stack to serve customers better, spanning network infrastructure, devices, software, operating systems and digital applications.

That positioning is significant for valuation. Jio is asking investors to price a company with 524.4 million telecom customers as a technology and digital-services platform, rather than solely on telecom metrics such as average revenue per user.

The company’s prospectus describes its vertically integrated model as enabling faster innovation, reducing reliance on external vendors and supporting the scale-up of 4G, 5G, cloud and AI technologies.

Isha Ambani traces Jio’s origin

Reliance director Isha Ambani offered a personal account of Jio’s origins, recalling that a failed attempt to submit a college assignment online in Mumbai during a break from studies in the United States in 2009-10 triggered a conversation with Akash about India’s connectivity gap.

“Akash and I were in college in the States, and we were back home in Bombay for a break,” she said. “I tried to submit an assignment, but unfortunately, the internet did not work and I couldn’t submit it.”

She said Akash believed the answer lay in building a digital technology platform company capable of addressing India’s connectivity needs. That conversation preceded Reliance Jio’s commercial launch in September 2016, which introduced free voice calls and low-cost data and transformed mobile internet access in India.

Long-term capital, scale and discipline

Isha Ambani also laid out the principles behind Reliance’s business-building approach: long-term planning, scale and execution. She said the group evaluates businesses over decades rather than immediate opportunities, and defines scale by what is required to change an industry’s economics.

She invoked Mukesh Ambani’s 2019 commitment to make Reliance Industries net debt-free by March 2021, noting that the target was achieved ahead of schedule in June 2020 following investments in Jio Platforms and a rights issue.

Referring to her grandfather Dhirubhai Ambani, who took Reliance public in 1977, she said the third generation remained committed to allowing Indians to participate in the country’s economic growth.

Reservations for employees and RIL shareholders

The IPO includes a reservation of up to ₹500 crore for eligible Jio Platforms employees, who will receive a discount of ₹54 per share under the employee reservation portion. Eligible Reliance Industries shareholders have a separate reservation of up to ₹2,500 crore.

The employee discount effectively lowers the entry price to ₹1,011–₹1,065 per share, depending on the band price at which the issue is finally priced.

The issue’s book-running lead managers include Kotak Mahindra Capital, Morgan Stanley India, BofA Securities, Axis Capital, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Securities, JP Morgan India and SBI Capital Markets, among others. KFin Technologies is the registrar.

Market anticipation builds

Reliance Industries shares rose 3% to ₹1,207 on the BSE on Thursday after Jio Platforms announced the IPO details.

Grey-market activity has also strengthened ahead of the issue. According to grey-market brokers cited in market reports, the unofficial premium rose to ₹210–₹218 per share, implying an indicative listing price of about ₹1,331 at the upper band — though grey-market premiums are unregulated and do not guarantee listing gains.

Jio Platforms’ financials will be closely scrutinised. Its revenue from operations rose to ₹1,46,885 crore in FY26 from ₹1,28,218 crore in FY25, while profit after tax increased to ₹30,049.7 crore from ₹26,120.3 crore.

The valuation question

The press conference sought to shift attention from Jio’s telecom scale to its technology ambitions. But investors will still have to reconcile that narrative with the company’s core economics: a subscriber base of over 524 million, substantial network capex, spectrum obligations and an ARPU that remains below Bharti Airtel’s.

Jio’s pitch is that its proprietary stack -- combining network, devices, software and AI applications -- can generate new revenue streams in cloud, enterprise services, smart home, gaming and digital applications.

The IPO will test whether the market accepts that argument. With anchor bidding set for October 19 and public subscription beginning two days later, Jio Platforms now has less than a week to convince investors that India’s largest telecom operator deserves to be valued as one of its leading technology companies.