The Real Reason Behind Jio's 10 Lakh Crore Valuation @thewallstreetschool

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:06]2016 India was standing at the edge of a digital revolution, but most Indians didn't realize it at the time. Mobile internet was expensive. Call drops were normal. People used to switch off videos midway to save data. 1 GB data in India costed roughly 225 to 250 rupees. Today in 2026, India is amongst the cheapest in the world when it comes to the data. And somewhere between these two realities stands one company, Reliance Jio.

[00:00:48]Because what Jio did, it was not competition. It was a corporate Kurukshetra. On one side, there were established telecom giants. On other side, there was Mukesh Ambani's Jio with almost 1.5 lakh crore already invested before launch. Imagine the audacity.

[00:01:11]Most companies pray for profitability after launch. Reliance spent billions billions before asking for a single rupee from the customer. That is not business confidence. That is empire building. And then, 5th September 2016, Mukesh Ambani took the stage.

[00:01:31]>> But Jio customers will be absolutely free with the lowest data rates anywhere in the world.

[00:01:38]>> Free voice.

[00:01:39]Mere words. But hidden inside that speech was one of the most destructive destructive business strategies India had ever seen. Free voice calls.

[00:01:53]Almost free data. Free roaming. India's telecom industry probably smiled nervously that day.

[00:02:01]Few months later, nobody was smiling. Data prices collapsed by more than 90%.

[00:02:08]Vodafone and Idea merged. Reliance Communication became bankrupt. Aircel disappeared. Smaller [snorts] telecom operators just vanished. And India India got addicted to the internet. Pehle log balance bachate the.

[00:02:24]Aaj log screen time nahi bacha pate.

[00:02:27]Today India consumes more mobile data than the entire continents, forget the countries. The average Indian user consumes more than 20 GB data per month.

[00:02:38]Imagine, more than 20 GB data per month on an average as an average Indian user.

[00:02:44]Think carefully about this. A country which was once scared of opening YouTube videos on mobiles so that the data does not get disturbed, became world's largest data consuming nation. That is not telecom disruption, that is behavioral colonization. And now, the same Reliance, same Reliance with Reliance Jio is preparing for what could become India's biggest IPO ever.

[00:03:10]Potential valuation? 10 lakh crores to 12 lakh crores. Some global estimates even hint towards 13 lakh crore plus of valuation. Not billion. 10 lakh crore plus of valuation. This IPO may just not list a company, it may permanently alter the Indian stock markets, the mutual funds, the retail investing, tech valuations, and perhaps India's position in the global markets itself. Kuch companies product bechni hai, kuch services, aur kuch future. Today, we decode how Reliance Jio's IPO could change the Indian markets forever.

[00:03:50]Welcome back, everyone. Today's video is not merely about an IPO. It is about ambition, about scale, about strategy, about India's digital destiny. Because somewhere Mukesh Ambani's Reliance understood something before almost everyone else. Data is India's future oil, not the crude oil. It was data. And in the 21st [clears throat] century, whoever controls data pipelines eventually influences commerce, advertising, entertainment, payments, education, shopping, and even human attention itself. That is why global giants invested billions into Jio. Meta invested nearly 5.7 billion dollars.

[00:04:33]Google invested 4.5 billion dollars. Not because they needed another telecom company, because they saw what Reliance was quietly building. India's digital infrastructure backbone. Jung sirf telecom ki nahi thi, control ki thi. To put in context, it is perhaps the most aggressive business disruption India has ever seen. And to understand this IPO, let's first understand how outrageous Jio's story actually is. Reliance did not enter telecom gradually. It entered like a tsunami. Before launch itself, nationwide fiber, 4G only architecture, spectrum purchases, massive towers, gigantic capex, nearly 1.5 lakh crore deployed before even a single penny being earned. 1.5 lakh And then came the killer move.

[00:05:25]It's all free.

[00:05:27]Now, understand the brilliance here.

[00:05:29]Mukesh Ambani did not attack the competitors first. He attacked the consumers' behavior. Because once Indians tasted cheap, unlimited internet, there was no going back.

[00:05:40]Within just 170 days, 6 months from its launch, Jio crossed 100 million subscribers. 10 crores is a lot. Faster than Facebook, faster than WhatsApp, faster than Skype, almost every major internet platform globally. And this is where the story becomes bigger than just the telecom. Jio indirectly accelerated the YouTube consumption, online education. The Wall Street School is also a beneficiary of it. Food platforms, OTT platforms, UPI adoption, creator economy, fantasy gaming, digital booking apps, influencer culture. Even India's stock market boom among youth is a lot to do with the data, free data given by Reliance Jio. Somewhere traces back to cheap internet penetration. A trader in Jaipur watching option selling videos, a student in Patna learning Excel online, a CFA aspirant attending lectures from a small town. Cheap data changed the economic access itself. You can internet system always say Let's talk of the markets. Why the last street is obsessed with this IPO? Because let's talk markets. India has never truly had a listed digital giant at this scale.

[00:06:58]Expected valuation is 120 to 150 billion dollars. That roughly translates into 10 to 12 to 13 lakh crores. For comparison, this could immediately place Jio amongst India's most valuable listed business.

[00:07:15]And remember, this is no longer merely telecom. Jio today includes wireless, broadband, air fiber, enterprise services, cloud infrastructure, entertainment ecosystem, apps, AI ambitions, device ecosystems, potentially financial services integration in the future. You're talking about subscriber base, more than 500 million users. This is larger than the population of most countries. And unlike many tech startups, Jio already generates enormous operating cash flows.

[00:07:47]I mean, they have reported EBITDA estimates to the tune of 60,000 plus crores. This is why global investors are paying attention. Because markets worship three things: scale, profitability, dominance.

[00:08:01]Jio has all three of them.

[00:08:12]It is going to help in index transformation. If Jio lists near expected valuations, it could immediately get massive weightage in Nifty, Sensex, MSCI indices, and global emerging market indices. That means ETFs, passive funds, pension funds, global institutions, all may need exposure automatically. This creates enormous liquidity flows into the Indian markets. Second, India would finally get its tech titan.

[00:08:43]I mean, we've all known Reliance as a petrochemical company for the last 40-45 years. But imagine, America has Apple, Amazon, Meta, Google. China has Alibaba, Tencent. India mostly had banks, IT services, manufacturing conglomerates.

[00:09:01]Jio could become India's first truly gigantic listed digital consumer tech platform. Psychologically, this changes the global perception. India may stop looking like only a services economy and start looking like a digital consumption superpower. And also, understand the Reliance emotional connection with the middle class. I mean, Dhirubhai Ambani, he was the one who created that equity cult in India investing decades ago when Reliance IPO came way back in 1977.

[00:09:31]Reliance AGMs in football stadiums felt like public events. Mukesh Ambani perhaps understands something deeply.

[00:09:39]India may look shares correctly and this IPO could create enormous retail participation especially among first-time investors. And let's be honest, just if it is brutality in IPOs in the last two years just stock market become the retail investors emotionally hurt in the demat account up stock but if Jio delivers strong listing and performance confidence in India's IPO ecosystem may return aggressively and when confidence returns liquidity follows. And if I talk of the risk, if I talk of the okay, emotions because markets punish blind worship. I think risk telecom remains brutally capital intensive. 5G rollout requires huge continuous investments. Competition will be here. ARPU in India average revenue per user remains relatively low as compared to the development markets and perhaps the most important question, how should Jio be valued as a telecom operator or as a technology ecosystem because those two categories trade at absolutely different valuation multiples. One gets respected, the other gets legendary valuations and perhaps the biggest risk is the expectation itself from the Reliance Jio IPO. Because excellent companies give the expectations give me but irrespective of the valuations one thing is undeniable.

[00:11:14]Jio has already changed India once and it may change Indian capital markets for once and for all the times. From cheap internet to digital payments to OTTs to online education to stock market participation, Jio sits quietly at the center of modern Indian consumption and somewhere this IPO represents something larger than Reliance itself. It represents India's digital rise. It represents India's ambition to build global scale technology giants.

[00:12:01]Because Mukesh Ambani may not merely be listing a telecom company. He may be listing India's digital future. Tell me honestly in the comments, will Jio become India's greatest wealth creating IPO or India's biggest market hype event? And if you enjoyed this deep dive, do like, subscribe and share this video with someone who still thinks that Jio is just a SIM card company.