Google picks up a 7.7% stake for ₹33,737 crore in Reliance Jio – the two will now build affordable smartphones for India

• Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani announced that Google has invested ₹33,737 crore in Jio Platforms for a 7.7% stake.
• With this, Jio, has closed its investment rounds with a total fund of ₹2,12,800 crore.
• Google becomes the second largest investor in Jio after Facebook which has a 9.9% stake in the company.

Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani announced that Google has invested ₹33,737 crore in Jio Platforms for a 7.7% stake. With this, Jio, has closed its investment rounds with a total fund of ₹2,12,800 crore.

Google becomes the second largest investor in Jio after Facebook which has a 9.9% stake in the company. Jio has raised money from investors like Intel, Qualcomm Ventures, Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners, General Atlantic, KKR, Mubadala, ADIA, TPG and Saudi PIF since April 22, 2020.

“Jio is now the undisputed leader in India with the largest customer base, with the largest share of data and voice traffic, and next-generation broadband network,” said Ambani during the Reliance annual general meeting.

Jio Platforms and Google have also entered into a commercial agreement to jointly develop an entry level affordable smartphone with optimizations to the Android operating system and the Play Store.

The investment from Google comes from CEO Sundar Pichai’s recent announcement that it will invest a whopping $10 billion in India through the Google for India Digitization Fund. During the company’s annual Google For India event which went digital this time, Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google said that the investment will be done over the next 5-7 years.

“Reliance Industries, and Jio Platforms in particular, deserve a good deal of credit for India’s digital transformation. The pace and scale of digital transformation in India is hugely inspiring for us and reinforces our view that building products for India first helps us build better products for users everywhere. Google is proud to invest ₹ 33,737 crore into Jio. I am excited that our joint collaboration will focus on increasing access for hundreds of millions of Indians who don’t currently own a smartphone while improving the mobile experience for all," said Pichai.

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