Facebook invests $5.7 billion for a 9.99% stake in Reliance Jio

As we already reported, Facebook today made its investment in Reliance Jio official. Facebook has invested $5.7 billion for a 9.99% stake in Reliance Jio. As per this deal, Reliance Jio is now valued at $65.95 billion.

You can read Mark Zuckerberg’s reaction to this deal below.

There’s a lot going on in the world right now, but I wanted to share an update on our work in India. Facebook is teaming up with Jio Platforms — we’re making a financial investment, and more than that, we’re committing to work together on some major projects that will open up commerce opportunities for people across India.

India is home to the largest communities on Facebook and WhatsApp, and a lot of talented entrepreneurs. The country is in the middle of a major digital transformation and organizations like Jio have played a big part in getting hundreds of millions of Indian people and small businesses online.

This is especially important right now, because small businesses are the core of every economy and they need our support. India has more than 60 million small businesses and millions of people rely on them for jobs. With communities around the world in lockdown, many of these entrepreneurs need digital tools they can rely on to find and communicate with customers and grow their businesses. This is something we can help with — and that’s why we’re partnering with Jio to help people and businesses in India create new opportunities.

I want to thank Mukesh Ambani and the entire Jio team for their partnership. We’re looking forward to getting started.

Reliance Jio is the largest mobile network operator in India and the third largest mobile network operator in the world with over 370.07 million subscribers. Thanks to its aggressive pricing strategy, Jio reached this top position in just 3 years after its launch. Recently, Jio also announced a fiber to the home service, offering home broadband, television, and telephone services. In order to reduce its debt pile, Reliance sold Jio’s stake.

As part of the investment, Jio Platforms, Reliance Retail and WhatsApp have also entered into a commercial partnership to accelerate Reliance Retail’s New Commerce business on the JioMart platform using WhatsApp and to
support small businesses on WhatsApp. Consumers can access the nearest kiranas who can provide products and services to their homes by transacting seamlessly with JioMart using WhatsApp.

Jio and Microsoft entered into a long-term alliance last year to accelerate India’s digital transformation to launch cloud datacenters. Both the companies will help Indian organisations build digital capabilities with tools and platforms. This partnership involves Microsoft 365, Microsoft Azure and Microsoft AI. In partnership with Microsoft, Reliance is offering free cloud and connectivity setup to startups for free.

Source: Reliance