Jio Platforms

Jio Platforms

By Geetanjali Kedia
about 11 days ago

IPO Size: Rs. 30,213 cr, entirely Fresh Issue  

  • To repay Rs. 27,500 cr of Rs. 62,138 cr gross debt, as of 30.6.26

Price band: Rs.1,065 to Rs. 1,119 per share

M cap: Rs. 10.3 lakh cr, implying 2.9% dilution

IPO Date: Wed 21st Oct to Fri 23rd Oct 2026, Listing Wed 28th Oct 2026

Grey Market Premium (GMP): We are strongly against ‘grey market premium’ as it is an unofficial figure, against SEBI guidelines.

 

India’s #1 Mobile and Fixed Broadband Company

Jio Platforms, a 66.4% subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), is a technology platform for mobile, fixed broadband, digital services. The telecom business is housed under subsidiary Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL), with a total subscriber base of 533 million, as of 30.6.26, being the largest in India. However, company is not the largest on many other operational and financial parameters.

 

Lowest ARPU Growth

Jio led the industry-wide tariff hikes in Q1FY25 with an aim to strengthen average revenue per user (ARPU). For Q1FY27, its ARPU stood at Rs. 215.6, up 3% YoY from Q1FY26’s Rs. 208.8. This 3% growth, however, is lower than Bharti Airtel’s 5% and Vodafone Idea’s 7% during the same period.

And this is despite customers upgrading from 2G to 5G, with Jio’s 5G customer addition jumping 36% YoY to 285 million, as of 30.6.26. Thus 57% of company’s mobile subscribers are already on 5G, implying ARPU expansion from customer upgrades has partially played out.

 

Comparison with Airtel

  1. Absolute Size: Jio Platform’s Q1FY27 revenue was Rs. 39,173 cr with EBITDA of Rs. 19,840 cr and PAT of Rs. 7,764 cr. Bharti Airtel’s topline was much larger at Rs. 58,539 cr with EBITDA of Rs. 33,057 cr also higher.
  2. Jio’s ARPU is 18% lower than Airtel’s Rs. 264 due to subscriber mix. Lately, Jio’s growth has been led by fixed broadband subscriber addition and not much ARPU expansion.
  3. Growth Rates: Jio trails Airtel in growth rates for Q1FY27 as well as for FY26, on all counts – subscriber addition, ARPU, revenue, EBITDA and profit.
  4. Q1FY27 EBITDA margin excluding other income i.e. operating margin was 50.6% for Jio, lagging not just Bharti Airtel’s 56.5% but also Vodafone Idea’s 56.8%.
  5. Jio’s Return on Capital Employed (RoCE) has been declining, from 12.8% in FY24 to 10.2% in Q1FY27, and is nearly half of Airtel’s 20%+. Even Jio’s RoE of 9.2% is not lucrative enough from an investor lense.

On both key parameters – ARPU and EBITDA margin, Jio lags Airtel.

 

Fully Priced IPO

Jio’s market cap of Rs. 10,30,487 cr and Enterprise Value of Rs. 10,09,107 cr lead to a current year PE multiple of about 32x and an EV/EBITDA multiple of 13x, based on FY27E estimated EPS of about Rs. 35 and an estimated EBITDA of close to Rs.79,400 cr.

As against this, Bharti Airtel is trading at a lower EV/EBITDA multiple of 10x, although the PE multiple is ~35x, for latter’s larger size and superior growth. Thus, Jio Platforms IPO offers little value to investors.

 

Future Outlook

Connectivity industry is highly capital intensive (towards spectrum and network equipment) and subject to rapid and continuous technological changes. But low domestic tariffs are unable to justify the large investments.

Jio’s Rs. 1.04 lakh cr spectrum liability and evolving technology for satellite communication will call for significant funds in future. Thus, the debt retirement appears temporary.   

The IPO is essentially being undertaken to provide an eventual exit to strategic and financial investors like Meta, Google, General Atlantic, TPG among others, holding 33.6% combined stake, since 2020, at a cost of Rs 488 per share and Rs. 549 per share. The exit to investors has been due for a couple of years now and post expiry of 6 month lock-in window, there is bound to be a large overhang on stock price, due to selling pressure from these large investors.

 

Are Mega IPOs Unrewarding for Investors in India?

Jio Platforms is India’s largest IPO till date. But India’s large IPOs have seldom rewarded investors.

  • Recently listed NSE is trading marginally lower from its IPO price of Rs. 1,785
  • Hyundai Motors, which raised Rs 27,870 cr in Oct 2024, got listed marginally below IPO price of Rs. 1,960
  • LIC’s Rs. 20,557 cr IPO in April 2022 also saw muted debut, share listing at a 8% discount to IPO price of Rs. 949
  • Last year, Tata Capital’s Rs. 15,512 cr IPO in Oct 2025 witnessed a flat listing
  • One97 Communications also listed at 10% discount after raising Rs.18,300 cr in Nov 2021. 

Barring LG Electronics’ Rs.11,607 cr Oct 2025 IPO, most mega IPOs have been a dampener for investors. Can Jio break the trend?