Jio Platforms aspires to deliver India’s biggest IPO, says Akash Ambani
Ahead of its initial public offering (IPO), Jio Platforms Ltd’s managing director, Akash Ambani, said on Thursday that the aspiration is to make it India’s largest public offering and to focus on creating shareholder value.
“Of course, the IPO is the biggest step for us as a company. We are a 10-year-old company. We truly believe that the future ahead is very exciting,” Ambani told reporters on the sidelines of the India Mobile Congress.
“We will work on the mission of bringing technologies that enhance the lives of every Indian consumer, every Indian citizen. And from my perspective, the IPO will be a great place for us to start and go on from there.”
Jio’s IPO also drew a reaction from Sunil Bharti Mittal, founder and chairman of rival Bharti Airtel Ltd, which was listed in 2002. “Excellent, we are all looking forward to a very successful IPO,” Mittal said in response to a Mint query.
Airtel’s market capitalization stands at ₹11.2 trillion, according to BSE.
Jio Platforms, the parent company of Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, is just a few weeks away from launching its IPO and going public.
Pegged at around ₹35,000 crore, the Jio IPO is touted as the country’s largest by a private company and comes a month after the ₹22,562 crore listing of National Stock Exchange on BSE.
IPO timeline
Akash Ambani is the eldest of the three children of Reliance Industries Ltd’s chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani. He joined the leadership team at the group’s telecom unit, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, as a non-executive director in 2014, soon after graduating in economics from Brown University. Later in June 2022, Akash was appointed as chairman of Reliance Jio Infocomm.
In May, Mint was the first to report his appointment as the company’s managing director.
“We are doing a public issue, it’s not a confidential IPO. At the right time, the timelines will be revealed, but we are working very hard on it,” Ambani said when asked about the timeline of the IPO.
SpaceX controversy
Ambani’s comments follow SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk’s allegation on Wednesday that Indian “oligarchs” were scuttling the launch of Starlink Services Llc in India, even as a company executive said the satellite internet company is awaiting India’s final nod, and has tailored operations to meet all security and regulatory requirements.
The government responded on Thursday, saying that it “has put in place a fair and non-discriminatory authorization framework for all telecommunication services, including satellite communication services”.
“Security assessment as part of this process is currently underway in respect of all three licensees. As and when this process is completed for a licensed entity, it may proceed to the next step of seeking assignment of spectrum,” the communications ministry said in a statement.
When asked about the same, Mittal said: “We (Eutelsat OneWeb) are waiting for our own approval…we hope to receive it soon.”
Ambani, however, did not comment on the controversy.
Jio is building a sovereign low-Earth orbit satellite constellation for India, putting it in competition with Starlink and Amazon’s Leo. The telecom operator is currently planning a 1,600-satellite constellation.
On value creation from the satellite operations, Ambani said: “Jio has always stood for the consumer, and satellite plays a part. The biggest use case for satellite technologies today is the home-connect part. And from my perspective, today we need to ensure that the home broadband story is that every Indian home should be able to get a home broadband connection.”
“Satellite is only going to increase that (home broadband connection) very rapidly. But today we can say that we cover 99% of Indian homes,” he said, adding that it is always delivering that consumer value rather than looking at technology.
Tariff war
On the question of raising tariffs, Ambani said that the company “will stick to being very inclusive for all Indians and very affordable for everyone”.
On Wednesday, Airtel raised prices across its postpaid plans by 3-11%, marking the first increase in two years.
Currently, Jio is trailing Airtel in average revenue per user (Arpu), a key metric that indicates whether an operator has paying customers and, if so, whether they are willing to pay for a high-priced plan for the services offered.
Airtel has an industry-leading Arpu of ₹264 as of June end, compared to Reliance Jio’s ₹215.6 and Vodafone Idea’s ₹177.
