Jio Platforms Plans ₹30,213 Crore IPO, With Debt Repayment at the Centre

A record share sale built around reducing debt

Jio Platforms plans to sell up to 27 crore new shares at ₹1,065 to ₹1,119 each in an initial public offering scheduled for October 21 to 23, 2026. At the highest price, the Reliance Industries digital and telecom business could raise ₹30,213 crore, with up to ₹27,500 crore earmarked for repaying borrowings at its main telecom subsidiary, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL).

The proposed fundraising would exceed Hyundai Motor India's ₹27,858.75 crore offering in 2024 by about 8.5%, making Jio's issue India's largest if completed at that size. It would also be about 47% larger than Life Insurance Corporation of India's ₹20,557.23 crore offering.

Jio's structure gives the transaction a different purpose. Hyundai and LIC sold shares held by their existing owners. Jio proposes to issue fresh shares, so the proceeds would enter the company. Existing shareholders would retain their shares while owning a smaller percentage of the enlarged share base.

The business approaching investors served 533.3 million customers as of June 30, 2026. Its prospectus records FY26 revenue of ₹1,46,885.3 crore and profit after tax of ₹30,049.1 crore. Behind those figures sits a central investment question: how much further can Jio grow earnings from its existing networks, customers and technology while meeting substantial future payment commitments?

The company's red herring prospectus, published through the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), sets out the financial statements, intended use of funds and risks. It proposes listing on BSE and the National Stock Exchange, with NSE serving as the designated exchange for the issue.

The dates and cost of applying

Reliance filed the red herring prospectus with the Registrar of Companies, Gujarat, at Ahmedabad, on October 14. A red herring prospectus is the detailed offer document investors use to examine a company before its final issue price is settled.

The minimum application is 12 shares, with larger bids made in multiples of 12. One lot costs ₹13,428 at the upper price of ₹1,119. The ₹10 face value is the share's nominal accounting value; applicants pay the issue price established through bidding.

• June 19, 2026: Jio Platforms filed its draft prospectus.
• October 14: The red herring prospectus was filed and the price band approved.
• October 19: Bidding is scheduled for anchor investors.
• October 21 to 23: The public subscription window is scheduled to open.
• October 26: Share allotment is expected.
• October 28: Trading on BSE and NSE is tentatively expected to begin.

Anchor investors are institutions allocated shares before public bidding opens. Half their allocation will be locked for 30 days from allotment and the other half for 90 days, restricting when they can sell.

KFin Technologies is the registrar, which handles application and allotment records. Nineteen investment banks are managing the offering. The final price will be determined through book building, a process in which investor bids help establish the selling price within the announced band.

Who qualifies for the reserved portions?

Jio has earmarked up to ₹2,500 crore of shares for eligible Reliance Industries shareholders and up to ₹500 crore for eligible employees. Together, those reservations total ₹3,000 crore. Eligible employees receive a discount of ₹54 per share in their reserved portion.

The shareholder category covers qualifying individuals and Hindu undivided families holding Reliance public equity shares as of October 14, 2026. A Hindu undivided family is a family unit recognised separately for Indian tax purposes. Holding a single Reliance share can meet the ownership requirement, subject to the offer's other eligibility rules.

Applications in the shareholder category are capped at ₹2 lakh. Eligible shareholders may also apply in the retail or noninstitutional category under the offer's rules. An allocation still depends on demand and the allotment process.

Applications can be submitted through a broker or a bank's Application Supported by Blocked Amount facility, known as ASBA. The application amount remains blocked in the investor's bank account until the allotment process determines how much is payable. Individual applicants can also use UPI through supported channels.

The company's IPO document page lists the prospectus, abridged prospectus, industry report and annual reports for FY24, FY25 and FY26. It also lists agreements covering the registrar, monitoring agency, banking arrangements and issue management.

How much debt could the proceeds remove?

Jio Platforms had consolidated borrowings of ₹61,372.2 crore on June 30, 2026, down from ₹70,781 crore at the end of March. RJIL accounted for ₹59,140.2 crore in borrowings backed by funded facilities, placing the telecom subsidiary at the centre of the repayment plan.

Using the full proposed ₹27,500 crore repayment against the June balance would reduce consolidated borrowings to approximately ₹33,872.2 crore, assuming everything else stayed unchanged. That is a reduction of about 44.8%. The eventual balance will depend on borrowing movements, the amount repaid and the timing of completion.

Akash Ambani, identified in the prospectus as Jio Platforms' managing director, described the company's debt reduction aim at the October 15 IPO briefing:

All our IPO proceeds go towards reducing our debt,

The prospectus specifies repayment of certain RJIL borrowings and general corporate purposes as the uses of net proceeds. The repayment allocation is up to ₹27,500 crore; issue expenses also reduce the amount available from gross fundraising.

Cash and cash equivalents of ₹19,026.8 crore, together with current investments of ₹32,806.3 crore, totalled ₹51,833.1 crore at June 30. Subtracting those amounts from borrowings gives approximately ₹9,539.1 crore in net debt. Net debt is a way of assessing borrowings after allowing for cash and specified investments available on the balance sheet.

Jio also faces ₹1,04,513.7 crore in deferred payment liabilities, ₹13,735.9 crore in lease liabilities and ₹9,038.9 crore in estimated capital expenditure contracts awaiting execution. Those commitments create cash requirements alongside the loans being repaid. External commercial borrowing facilities totalling about ₹29,917 crore were scheduled to mature in 2028.

Profitability is improving as revenue grows

Jio's prospectus records revenue growth of 14.6% in FY26, from ₹1,28,218.4 crore to ₹1,46,885.3 crore. Profit after tax rose 15.1%, from ₹26,109 crore to ₹30,049.1 crore. Over two years, revenue increased about 34.1% from FY24, while profit increased about 40.3%.

The prospectus gives FY26 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of ₹76,255.4 crore and a margin of 51.91%, compared with ₹73,382 crore and 50% in initial IPO figures. It records FY26 profit of ₹30,049.1 crore, compared with the ₹30,064 crore figure initially circulated. The prospectus figures provide the basis for the calculations here.

EBITDA helps show earnings from operations before financing costs, taxes and accounting charges for assets. Its margin expresses those earnings as a percentage of revenue. Net profit captures the amount left after those additional costs.

For April to June 2026, the first quarter of FY27, revenue reached ₹39,172.9 crore, up 11.8% from a year earlier. The prospectus records EBITDA of ₹20,864.5 crore and a 53.26% margin, compared with ₹19,840 crore and 50.6% in initial IPO figures. Quarterly profit was ₹7,764.1 crore, with a margin of 19.82%, below 20.30% a year earlier.

Basic earnings per share increased from ₹23.96 in FY24 to ₹33.63 in FY26. Dividing the offer price by FY26 earnings gives a price to earnings ratio of approximately 31.7 at the bottom of the band and 33.3 at the top. Those calculations use historical earnings and the share count underlying that period's earnings per share.

More customers are using more data

Jio's customer base grew from 481.8 million in FY24 to 488.2 million in FY25 and 524.4 million in FY26. Net additions accelerated from 6.4 million in FY25 to 36.2 million in FY26, followed by another 8.9 million in the quarter ending June 2026.

Average revenue per user (ARPU), the average monthly revenue earned from each customer, reached ₹215.6 in that quarter. It had been ₹214 in the final quarter of FY26 and ₹181.7 in the final quarter of FY24. The latest figure represents an increase of about 18.7% over two years.

Monthly data consumption per customer climbed from 28.7 GB to 43.7 GB over the same comparison, an increase of about 52.3%. Total quarterly data traffic reached 69.4 billion GB, compared with 54.7 billion GB a year earlier.

Monthly churn, the proportion of customers leaving the service, declined to 1.61% from 1.84% a year earlier and 1.67% in the final quarter of FY26. Lower churn helps Jio retain customers while adding new ones.

Jio's 5G customer base reached 284.9 million in the first quarter of FY27. Its standalone 5G network uses a core built for 5G rather than relying on a 4G core, supporting applications that need fast connections and short response times, including cloud gaming and interactive video.

Home broadband provides another route to growth

JioFiber and JioAirFiber together served 28.6 million customers by June 30. JioAirFiber accounted for 14 million, or nearly half that total, after launching in September 2023. It provides fixed wireless broadband, connecting premises through radio equipment rather than requiring a fibre cable for the final connection.

The prospectus, drawing on an Analysys Mason industry study, puts Indian household fixed broadband penetration at about 21% in March 2026. The study projects approximately 46% penetration and 150.4 million customers by FY31. Jio captured 61.73% of net fixed broadband customer additions in the quarter ending June.

Jio's infrastructure includes access to 360,537 towers and more than one million route kilometres of fibre. Its spectrum holdings totalled 26,800.8 MHz, with an average remaining life of approximately 15.8 years.

The portfolio spans 700 MHz, 3,300 MHz and 26 GHz spectrum. Lower frequencies help signals travel farther and reach indoors, while higher frequencies provide capacity for heavy traffic over shorter distances. Jio combines those bands to support mobile services and home broadband.

The prospectus also identifies 261 million people still using 2G networks as a potential market for migration. Its ₹799 JioBharat handset targets users moving from basic voice services towards internet access. For businesses, Jio is pursuing connectivity, cloud, cybersecurity and managed services, with the industry study estimating digital service adoption among India's micro, small and medium enterprises at below 3%.

Technology ambitions meet a telecom revenue base

Jio employed 12,477 people in digital products and technology development at June 30, approximately 45% of its workforce. Of those employees, 8,156 worked on digital products and services, while the rest worked on network technology engineering.

The company had filed 7,220 patent applications, including 2,655 in India and 4,565 abroad. Its research spans 4G, 5G, 6G, network architecture and artificial intelligence. JioBrain, its AI platform, supports capacity allocation, fault prediction and network optimisation.

Akash Ambani said Jio intends to offer technology to overseas telecom operators through managed services, combining technology delivery with responsibility for operating it. He also outlined plans for AI call summaries and transcription across 12 Indian languages.

Reliance's broader AI plans include computing infrastructure in Jamnagar, Gujarat, partnerships with Google and Meta, and collaboration with Nvidia. Jio is also exploring satellite connectivity and researching 6G as it expands its mobile, home broadband and enterprise businesses.

Connectivity remains the financial engine. India generated 96.62% of FY26 revenue, and RJIL contributed 87.74% of consolidated operating revenue, 94.88% of EBITDA and 93.76% of profit. The prospectus says individual digital products generally lack separately disclosed revenue because they are bundled with connectivity services.

The risks behind the scale

Reliance Retail is the sole distributor of Jio's prepaid connectivity services. Revenue through that arrangement represented 77.08% of FY26 consolidated operating revenue. The prospectus identifies disruption to this distribution relationship and other Reliance group arrangements as business risks.

Network reliability, spectrum and licence renewals, dependence on a limited group of tower and fibre providers, cybersecurity breaches and the cost of keeping technology current also feature among the principal risks. AI introduces risks from biased or inaccurate model outputs.

Reliance Industries owned 66.43% before the issue. Meta affiliate Jaadhu Holdings held 9.98%, Google International held 7.73% and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund held 2.31%. A separate stock market price for Jio would give investors a directly observable valuation for a major Reliance business, while fresh issuance would dilute existing percentage holdings.

An unofficial grey market premium of ₹235 implies ₹1,354 per share when added to the ₹1,119 cap price, or about 21% more. No precise observation time was given for that premium. The prospectus says trading prices after listing will depend on the market and warns that investors face the possibility of losing their entire investment.

Key Points

• Jio Platforms plans public bidding from October 21 to 23, 2026, at ₹1,065 to ₹1,119 per share.
• The fresh issue could raise ₹30,213 crore, with up to ₹27,500 crore allocated to RJIL debt repayment.
• The minimum bid is 12 shares, costing ₹13,428 at the cap price.
• Eligible Reliance shareholders and employees have reservations totalling up to ₹3,000 crore.
• The prospectus records FY26 revenue of ₹1,46,885.3 crore and profit of ₹30,049.1 crore.
• Jio served 533.3 million customers at June 30, including 28.6 million home broadband subscribers.
• Substantial deferred payments and lease commitments remain alongside the planned borrowing reduction.
• Allotment is expected on October 26 and listing tentatively on October 28.