Google pays Rs 33,737 cr for 7.73% stake in Jio Platforms

Alphabet Inc's Google has paid Rs 33,737 crore for a 7.73 per cent stake in Reliance Industries Ltd's (RIL) digital subsidiary, Jio Platforms Ltd, joining the list of global investors such as Facebook, billionaire Mukesh Ambani's firm said.

The transaction also marks the US technology giant's biggest-ever investment in an Indian company.

With this, Jio Platforms has raised a total of Rs 1.52 lakh crore by selling nearly 33 per cent stake to 13 financial and strategic investors in just 11 weeks.

This has helped RIL erase its net debt much ahead of the March 2021 target.

"After receipt of all requisite approvals, Jio Platforms, a subsidiary of the company, received the subscription amount of Rs 33,737 crore from Google International LLC (a wholly owned subsidiary of Google LLC)," RIL said in a stock exchange filing.

Jio Platforms has allotted equity shares to Google International LLC following which Google International LLC holds 7.73 per cent of the fully diluted equity share capital of Jio Platforms Limited, it said.

Google and Jio Platforms will also collaborate to develop "an entry-level affordable smartphone with optimisations to the Android operating system and the Play Store", the two companies had said in July.

Jio Platforms houses India's youngest but largest telecom service provider Jio with more than 400 million users.

It also houses the digital assets of RIL, including broadband connectivity, cloud and edge computing, big data analytics and artificial intelligence.

The Google-Jio deal will seek to leverage Jio and Google's existing digital services to capture the emerging digitisation market beyond the current 500 million internet users in India.

Photograph: Thomas Peter/Reuters