Jio Platforms' record debut makes it India's No. 2 company as Reliance topples Tata

Jio Platforms Ltd. closed its trading debut 26.7% above its IPO price, becoming India's second-most-valuable listed company and reshaping the top of the country's market-capitalisation table.

The telecom and digital arm of Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries listed at ₹1,358 on the BSE and NSE on Wednesday, a 21.4% premium to its issue price of ₹1,119, and closed at ₹1,417.35. At that level it was worth ₹13.05 lakh crore — roughly $137 billion — behind only parent Reliance Industries at ₹15.67 lakh crore and ahead of Bharti Airtel, whose shares fell 1.55% to ₹1,948.10, valuing the rival at ₹12.16 lakh crore.

Jio's price-to-earnings ratio stood at 42x against Airtel's 41x, according to Business Standard.

The listing also settled the contest at the top of India's conglomerates. Reliance Group's listed companies were worth about ₹30.25 lakh crore at Wednesday's close against ₹25.40 lakh crore for Tata Group, Business Standard reported, citing Bloomberg data. Tata had held the top spot by market value for most of the past decade.

Demand breaks records

The ₹30,213-crore ($3.1 billion) offering was the largest initial public offering in India's history, surpassing Hyundai Motor India's ₹27,859 crore issue in 2024. It was fully subscribed in about 95 to 100 minutes, drew bids for 22.19 times the shares on offer and pulled in more than 1.3 crore applications — a national record, ahead of Waaree Energies' 97.33 lakh. Demand across the public issue and the ₹8,110-crore anchor book exceeded ₹7.4 lakh crore, according to Business Standard.

The debut was the second-best opening-day gain in percentage terms for Indian IPOs sized above ₹10,000 crore, the Economic Times reported, and broke a decade-long pattern of the country's record-sized offerings listing below their issue prices. Life Insurance Corporation, Hyundai Motor India and Paytm all listed at a discount, while NSE managed a premium of about 1%.

Jio Platforms plans to use part of the proceeds to prepay up to ₹27,500 crore of borrowings at operating subsidiary Reliance Jio Infocomm, with the remainder for general corporate purposes, the Economic Times reported.

Second session extends gains

The stock rose as much as 5.12% to an intraday high of ₹1,490 on the BSE on Thursday, up 9.72% from its listing price and 33.15% above the IPO price. At 10:38 am it traded 3.9% higher at ₹1,472.60, valuing the company at ₹13.52 lakh crore, with the Sensex up 0.71% at 73,764. Volumes stayed heavy: 31.36 lakh shares worth ₹461.33 crore changed hands on the BSE and 215.61 lakh shares worth ₹3,172.65 crore on the NSE.

The advance carried Jio past the initial targets of all three brokerages that began coverage with 'Buy' ratings — Nomura at ₹1,340, Motilal Oswal at ₹1,350 and Elara Capital at ₹1,367. The listing-day intraday high of ₹1,375 had already cleared all three.

The contrast with the wider market was stark. Reliance Industries fell 3.19% to ₹1,158 on listing day, leaving it within 1% of its 52-week low, and the stock is down 25.4% this year against a 13.3% decline in the Nifty 50. Both the Sensex and Nifty ended marginally lower on Wednesday.

"Sometimes a big listing can alter the mood of the investing nation, and we all hope Jio does that to the Indian market," Shankar Sharma, founder of GQuant Investech, said in comments reported by Business Standard.

The next test

Brokerages expect the next leg of growth to come from converting Jio's subscriber base into higher average revenue per user. Nomura expects an industry-wide tariff increase of about 15% in November-December 2026; Motilal Oswal has pushed its forecast for a similar hike to March 2027 from December 2026; Ambit Capital Research expects 15% in December 2026 followed by biennial increases of about 12%.

Nomura sees India's mobile market expanding from ₹2.9 trillion in FY26 to ₹5.2 trillion in FY31 and forecasts an EBITDA compound annual growth rate of about 13.5% for Jio over FY26-FY29. Motilal Oswal projects 14% revenue growth, 15% EBITDA growth and 20% profit growth over the same period, plus cumulative free cash flow of ₹1.46 trillion and a net cash position by FY29. Nomura expects Jio to be net debt-free by FY29 as capital expenditure eases to about 23% of revenue in FY26 from 35% in FY25.

Home broadband is a second lever. Nomura put Jio's fixed broadband subscribers at 28.6 million in June 2026 against Airtel's 14.7 million, with Indian penetration near 21% versus a global average above 70% — an addressable market of more than 300 million households. Elara sees digital services, about 12% of revenue and 5% of EBITDA in FY27 estimates, doubling revenue and tripling EBITDA by FY30.

A generational handover

The listing doubled as a public handover. Akash Ambani, who took charge of Jio Platforms in April, said the company would work to make the business "bigger, better and more meaningful for India," and that "what Reliance has done for shareholders for nearly 50 years, Jio will continue to do so for the next fifty." He said Jio's homegrown platforms now serve more than 540 million customers.

Mukesh Ambani, 69, said at the ceremony: "My dream is that one day, when the world counts its great technology companies, one of them will be called Jio Platforms Limited," Business Standard reported. Isha Ambani recalled Reliance's first public offering in 1977, which raised ₹2.82 crore at a valuation of ₹10 crore, and cited Jio's annual revenue of about $15.5 billion and earnings of $8 billion.

Institutional and other large investors hold nearly 30.9% of Jio Platforms. Meta Platforms affiliate Jaadhu Holdings owns 9.98% and Google International 7.73%, alongside Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, affiliates of Silver Lake and Vista Equity, General Atlantic, KKR-backed entities and vehicles managed by the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

One technical hurdle remains: Jio will have to wait several months before it can join benchmark indices such as the Nifty 50, because exchanges must first introduce derivatives on the stock.