Akash Ambani says Reliance Jio’s planned flotation will broaden its shareholder base and test investor appetite for a business spanning connectivity, digital services and emerging technologies.
Akash Ambani has cast Reliance Jio’s planned public listing as more than a fund-raising exercise, describing it as a turning point for both the company and India’s capital markets. In an email interview with Business Standard, he said the offering would reflect the confidence of more than half a billion users and would bring a wider set of shareholders into Jio’s next phase of growth. Ambani framed the flotation as a milestone for a business that began as a bold bet on affordable data and then helped redraw India’s digital landscape.
He said Jio had built its own technology stack and accumulated more than 7,220 patent applications, and argued that the coming decade would be shaped by wider access to 5G, home broadband and artificial intelligence. According to Ambani, the company also wants to take technology developed in India into selected overseas markets through partnerships. That ambition has been echoed in recent reporting by Mint and Moneycontrol, which said Jio is aiming for an expansive, asset-light model that could eventually support global expansion through managed services and technology partnerships.
Ambani also presented the listing as a broader vote of confidence in India’s telecom sector. He said Jio carried 60 per cent of India’s wireless data traffic in the year to March 2026, and described the market debut as evidence that investors can now value connectivity, digital services and technology as a combined platform rather than a conventional telecom business. At the same time, he stressed that the company has already been operating with listed-company discipline, pointing to quarterly disclosures through Reliance Industries and governance systems established after the group brought in global shareholders in 2020.
On pricing and scale, Ambani said the valuation was not a management proclamation but the result of the book-building process, adding that Reliance has long preferred to leave room for incoming investors to benefit from future gains. He also said Jio had been priced at a discount to peers, by design, and that the size of the flotation reflected the breadth of the company’s business. Business Standard previously reported that Ambani has been mapping out a capex-light route to 6G, relying on software upgrades and existing infrastructure rather than a fresh physical build-out, while Mint reported that he sees the offering as potentially the largest in India.
Ambani pushed back against the idea that Jio must respond to quarterly market pressure by changing its operating style. He said the company already combines start-up agility with large-scale discipline, and that affordability would remain central to its growth model. Rather than setting an average revenue per user target, he said Jio intends to lift revenue through better engagement, network upgrades and more services, citing monthly usage of 43.7 gigabytes per customer in the June quarter of 2026. Mint and Mid-Day reported similar comments from Ambani, who said the company wants to create more value per user instead of relying on tariff increases.
Beyond terrestrial telecom, Ambani sketched a longer-term satellite plan built around India’s connectivity gaps. He said satellite links would complement, not replace, existing networks, particularly in maritime, aviation and remote regions where ground infrastructure is harder to extend. Jio is assessing a sovereign low-Earth-orbit constellation, building domestic ground-station capacity and exploring partnerships with established global satellite operators. He gave no launch date, saying the timing would depend on technology, approvals and other factors. Ambani also argued that regulation should encourage artificial intelligence while keeping safeguards around privacy, security and accountability, and said Jio’s products are being built to work in 12 Indian languages so more consumers can use AI in their own tongue.
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