Jio's record $3.2bn listing tests whether cheap data survives going public

India's biggest-ever share sale puts the company that pushed mobile data prices down under public-market pressure, and analysts expect revenue growth from other levers.

Jio Platforms, the telecom arm of Reliance and backed by Meta and Google, was scheduled to list on the stock market on a Wednesday. The offering is worth about $3.2bn, the largest share sale in India's history. Subscriptions opened on 21 October and bids exceeded the shares on offer within hours, with demand from global fund managers, domestic institutions and retail investors. Promoters will dilute their stake by about 3%.

The scale behind the listing is what matters for access. Jio launched in 2016 with very low tariffs, and the market shrank from 17 operators to three. Data usage rose fiftyfold within three years, and prices fell sharply. By 2026 Jio had about 553 million mobile subscribers, 60% of India's wireless data traffic, and over 40% of fixed broadband. Monthly use per customer rose from 28.7 GB in 2024 to 42.3 GB in 2026, a 52% increase.

For knowledge access, this is the outcome of a low-price strategy: hundreds of millions of people now use data at volumes that were out of reach a decade ago. Critics say the price war forced rivals out, which is a fair concern about concentration. Still, the listing itself does not reverse the access already gained.

What to watch is pricing. Analysts expect growth to come from higher revenue per subscriber, through 5G migration, tariff rises and fixed wireless, rather than discounting. They also say the listing could let rivals such as Vodafone Idea raise prices, which might push customers toward cheaper plans. These are analyst forecasts, not confirmed by Jio, and the 65 GB by 2030 usage figure is only an estimate. Reliance has denied Elon Musk's suggestion that Jio tried to block Starlink, saying it welcomes competition.

Source: Google News