Jio Platforms, the telecoms and digital services arm of India's Reliance Industries, opened India's largest-ever initial public offering on Wednesday, 21 October: 302.13 billion rupees, or ₹30,213 crore in Indian counting — one crore equals 10 million.
The issue was covered in 100 minutes, according to the news agency PTI, making it the fastest-subscribed mega offering in the country.
How day one went
By 5pm local time, the offer had drawn bids of about ₹69,800 crore (698 billion rupees) for 62.36 crore shares. Adding the anchor round's commitments, total demand reached ₹3.20 lakh crore — 3.2 trillion rupees.
The 19.75 crore shares put before the public were sought 3.16 times over. Demand was spread very unevenly:
- qualified institutional buyers: 9.42 times (46.15 crore shares bid for 4.90 crore reserved);
- non-institutional investors: 1.68 times;
- Reliance Industries shareholders: 1.46 times;
- employees: 1.37 times;
- retail: 0.73 times (6.18 crore shares bid for 8.50 crore reserved).
The retail tranche, then, was not filled on day one — even though, in absolute terms, PTI describes it as the largest first-day demand from individual investors in the history of India's capital market. Retail books tend to fill on the final day, and the offer stays open until 23 October.
What is being sold
The price band runs from ₹1,065 to ₹1,119 per share. At the top end, the offer values Jio Platforms at about US$108 billion.
It consists of 27 crore entirely new shares, equivalent to 2.9% of post-issue capital. There is no offer for sale: no existing shareholder is selling a stake, and all the money goes into the company. There are reservations of ₹500 crore for employees and ₹2,500 crore for Reliance Industries shareholders.
The registration document was filed with Sebi, India's market regulator, on 19 June, and the final observations were issued on 28 August. The listing on the BSE and the NSE is expected on 28 October.
The record that fell
Until now, India's largest initial offering was Hyundai Motor India's, at ₹27,870 crore, in 2024. The contrast in pace is striking: that issue had been subscribed only 18% by the end of its first day.
Where the money goes
About ₹27,500 crore of the net proceeds is to be used to prepay debts of Reliance Jio Infocomm, which totalled ₹70,781 crore on 31 March 2026 — meaning the offer covers roughly 39% of that borrowing. The rest goes to general corporate purposes. Moody's called the operation "credit positive" for Reliance Industries.
The size of Jio
The company reports 524.4 million subscribers and a base of about 15 million users on its AirFiber fixed wireless internet service. In the financial year ended March 2026, revenue was ₹1,46,885 crore, up 14.5%, and profit after tax came to ₹30,053 crore, 15% above the previous year.
With information from the PTI news agency (via ThePrint), India Infoline, NewsBytes and Tech Times.
