Reliance Jio Platforms seeks to expand its telecom subscriber base and grow its broader portfolio of digital services before going public, according to the report
In sum, what to know:
IPO postponed – Reliance Jio Platforms has pushed back its public listing beyond 2025 as it seeks to grow revenue and subscriber numbers.
Digital bets – While most revenue still comes from telecom, the firm is accelerating its investments in apps, devices and AI-powered enterprise solutions.
Valuation target – The company, valued at over $100 billion, is aiming to improve its financial profile and digital footprint before launching the IPO.
Indian telecom and digital services giant Reliance Jio Platforms has reportedly delayed its highly anticipated initial public offering (IPO) beyond 2025. According to a Reuters report, the company plans to wait until it boosts revenue and user growth.
Analysts value Jio Platforms at more than $100 billion. The delay comes as the company, led by Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, seeks to expand its telecom subscriber base and further expand its broader portfolio of digital services — including apps, connected devices and AI-based business solutions — before going public.
Jio Platforms is a digital services holding company and a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL). It owns and operates multiple digital businesses, with local telecommunications services firm Reliance Jio Infocomm being the largest and most well-known among them. Currently, about 80% of Jio Platforms’ $17.6 billion in annual revenue comes from its telecom arm.
In October last year, Reliance Jio Infocomm said it was taking a more measured approach to its 5G network expansion due to low capacity utilization and the delayed monetization of the technology. As a result, the Indian carrier is shifting its focus towards upgrading its existing 4G users to the more expensive 5G services, according to previous reports.
The current utilization of the telco’s 5G network stands at around 15%, according to sources familiar with Jio’s equipment suppliers. However, sources at Reliance Jio Infocomm had claimed that actual 5G usage is more than double that amount. Jio’s 5G infrastructure is supported by equipment from Nordic vendors Nokia and Ericsson.
Meanwhile, a Jio spokesperson said that the company’s future investments in the 5G field will be determined by demand. Industry analysts anticipate that Jio’s next phase of 5G expansion will likely occur once competition from Airtel intensifies. Jio’s 5G user base currently reaches approximately 130 million, while Airtel currently has nearly 90 million 5G customers.
In September of 2024, Mukesh Ambani, in charge of Reliance Industries, claimed Reliance Jio Infocomm had reached nationwide coverage with its 5G offering. During RIL’s 47th annual general meeting, Ambani said that more than 85% of the 5G radio cells in the country are operated by Jio.
Meanwhile, Jio Platforms, in partnership with AMD, Cisco and Nokia, announced plans to develop an Open Telecom AI Platform at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2025 to deliver AI-driven solutions for operators and service providers.
Bringing together expertise from RAN, routing, AI data centers, security and telecom, the Telecom AI Platform will introduce a central intelligence layer for digital and telecom services, Jio said, adding that the platform will integrate AI and automation into all aspects of network operations to enable end-to-end intelligence.
Designed to be LLM-agnostic, the new platform will incorporate open APIs and will utilize agentic AI, Large Language Models (LLMs), domain-specific Small Language Models (SLMs) and non-GenAI machine learning techniques to optimize network management and operations.
Jio noted that the Open Telecom AI Platform is expected to help service providers create more secure, efficient and scalable networks by leveraging high-performance computing and AI capabilities.