Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) during its 43rd annual general meeting (AGM) has announced Google will invest Rs 33,737 cr for a 7.7% stake in Jio Platforms. In addition, Jio revealed that the company is going to develop Jio TV Plus, Jio Glass, and more.
Google recently announced it will be investing $10 billion in India in the next five to seven years. With this investment, the company aims to consolidate its position in the digital platform of the country. The company will be deploying these investments via a mix of partnerships and investments. Google will be joining partners like KKR, TPG, Intel, and Qualcomm, Facebook, Silverlake, among others.
Facebook was the 1st company to invest in Jio platforms. The investment was announced back in April. It was announced that Facebook would invest $5.7 billion to get a 10% stake in Jio platforms. During the Annual General Meeting, Ambani announced that the deal has received all regulatory approvals for the deal. With this partnership, Jio will tie-up with WhatsApp to help India’s small businesses connect with customers.
Reliance Industries Limited Chairman & Managing Director, Mukesh D Ambani has announced that with Google’s investment, Reliance has turned completely debt-free. From now, it will be accepting strategic investments. The company also announced details on Jio 5G solutions and JioMart.
“Jioplatform has developed a complete 5G solution from scratch without any preparation that will enable us to launch a world-class 5G service in India.” The telecom administrator promises 100% home developed 5G solution. Trials to start soon and will be ready for field deployment by next year when 5G spectrum auctions begin.
Under the partnership, Google will grant optimization to its Android operating system and the Play Store for smartphones that Jio will launch in the market. With Google, the organization will develop an operating system based on Android to power this affordable 5G smartphone that the company plans to launch soon. With the help of Google’s partnership, Ambani stated, he wants to make India 2G-mukt (2G free).
The switch over from 4G to 5G via this partnership could lead to consolidation in the smartphone market, directly targeting the Chinese brands focussed on the mass market, or at least, capturing a proper chunk of their market shares.
The first Jio Phone was launched at a price of Rs 1,500 in the Indian market and the next Jio Phone 2 was launched at Rs 2,999. The Jio Phone was compatible with the social messaging platform WhatsApp.
The launch of an affordable 5G variant, in the rate of Rs 10,000-Rs 20,000, could take more than one year given the uncertainty around 5G spectrum auctions in India and the high-priced 5G chipsets. The US-based chipset designer Qualcomm via its investment arm had committed Rs 730 crore for a 0.15% stake in Jio Platforms this month. It had also launched previously the 4G feature phone chipset for Jio Phones.
“It is a much-needed move to enable hundreds of millions of feature phone users to migrate to smartphones and start using digital services and contribute to the digital economy,” said Navkender Singh, research director at International Data Corporation, India.
Jio Platforms and Reliance Industries, in particular, deserve a good deal of credit for India’s digital transformation. The pace and scale of digital transformation in India are hugely inspiring for us and reinforces our point of view that building products for India first helps us build better products for users everywhere.
