Jio Platforms closes nearly 27% up on debut after India’s biggest IPO

What happened

The Financial Times (FT) reported that Jio raised $3.2bn at a valuation of $108bn and then rose to roughly $130bn on debut, offering some relief to an Indian stock market hurt by the war in Iran. Open data back up the scale. The shares opened at ₹1,358 on the NSE and BSE, 21.36% above the ₹1,119 issue price, and finished the session at ₹1,419 on the NSE, leaving the company with a market value of about ₹13.05 lakh crore (₹13 trillion). That puts Jio behind only its parent, Reliance, and ahead of Bharti Airtel and HDFC Bank. The ₹30,213 crore offer drew bids 22.19 times the shares available. Separately, The Economist reported that India's ultra-cheap internet looks set to get pricier.

What it means

Demand was lopsided. Big institutions asked for 70.55 times the shares set aside for them, while ordinary retail investors bid for 2.72 times their slice, according to exchange data reported by CNBC. Nearly 1.39 crore (13.9 million) applications came in, and total demand, counting the anchor book, came to more than ₹7.4 lakh crore, or roughly $77bn to $78bn depending on the outlet. Before the public offer opened, 212 anchor investors, including BlackRock, Capital Group and GIC, took about ₹8,110 crore of stock at the top of the price range.

The deal matters for Reliance too. It is the group's first major listing in two decades, and every share sold was newly issued, so the money goes to the company rather than to existing owners. Jio plans to use part of it to pay down debt at its main telecom subsidiary. Reliance still owns about 66% of Jio, with an affiliate of Meta holding nearly 10% and Google 7.7%. That leaves a very small free float, the portion of shares that can actually trade, which Motilal Oswal estimates at below 3%. A thin float can exaggerate price moves in both directions.

Behind the excitement sits a straightforward business story. Jio reported revenue of about ₹1.47 lakh crore for the year to March 2026, up 14.6%, and net profit up 15.1% to around ₹30,049 crore, according to TelecomLead. Telecoms make up roughly 90% of both. It has about 533 million mobile subscribers and carries close to 60% of India's mobile data traffic. Nomura estimates spending on network buildout fell to about 23% of revenue in the latest fiscal year from 35% the year before, which could free up more cash now that the 5G rollout is largely done.

The next lever is pricing, which is the theme of The Economist's report. Nomura made a similar point, arguing that being a listed company will likely nudge Jio, as the market's price setter, toward regular tariff increases that rivals could copy. For investors, that is the core of the bet: more revenue per user from a customer base that is already enormous.

The bull case

Jio is the clear leader in Indian mobile and home broadband, its heavy 5G spending is easing, and Nomura expects it to become free of net debt by fiscal 2029. Demand from global funds was intense, and analyst Deven Choksey told CNBC that likely inclusion in benchmarks such as the Nifty 50 and MSCI indexes could add steady buying. Gradual price rises across the sector could lift earnings for Jio and its listed rivals.

The bear case

A first-day pop of this size already prices in plenty of good news, and with less than 3% of shares trading freely, swings can be sharp. Choksey also noted that investors who bought into Jio around 2021 may want to sell in roughly six months. Price rises could also cost subscribers, and with telecoms still producing about 90% of profit, newer AI and cloud bets have yet to prove themselves.