Ever since Jio Platforms filed its DRHP with SEBI on June 19, 2026, everyone has been quoting the numbers of the enterprise. 524 million customers. A ₹30,213 crore (about US$3.4 billion) fresh issue, which would make it the biggest IPO India has ever seen. Company valued at roughly ₹10.3 lakh crore (about US$117 billion). Employee count, revenue, P&L, CapEx.
All valid. But for me, the Jio moment came about 8 years ago, and it had nothing to do with a spreadsheet.
I was advising a tech startup in Lower Parel. Before Jio launched, the office had a “business grade” internet connection that went down from time to time. When it did go down, work just stopped. Everyone had their own mobile plan on their phone, but nobody was rushing to switch on their hotspot for the team. Data was expensive. You rationed it. Sharing it with a room full of developers pulling code felt like handing out your wallet.
Fast forward to the Jio age. Same office, same flaky line, and the internet went down again. This time EVERYONE was saying “arre, use my 4G hotspot.” Three people offered before I had even fully opened my laptop.
Nothing about the office had changed. What changed was the thinking. Data went from something you guard to something you give away without a second thought.
The numbers back this up. In 2014, Indians paid roughly ₹269 for a GB of mobile data. By 2018 it was under ₹12, a drop of about 96%. When something gets 20x cheaper in four years, people don’t just use more of it. They behave differently.
That is just one incident. Now multiply it by a billion people.
The full name of the company is Jio Platforms Limited, and I think “Platforms” is the most honest word in that name. Jio really is a platform for the entire country. The chaiwala taking UPI payments. The delivery rider navigating Mumbai traffic on Google Maps. The 10-minute grocery app. The farmer checking mandi prices. The kid in a tier-3 town learning to code on YouTube. The creator earning a living from Reels. So many businesses exist only because of the 4G and now 5G infrastructure Jio built, and more importantly, they priced it so well that EVERYONE could get online.
To be fair, it wasn’t painless. The price war was brutal for the rest of the industry, and India went from about ten telecom operators to effectively three private players. Consumers won big. Competitors, not so much.
What was your Jio moment?
