Facebook Invests $5.7 billion in India
Facebook has bought a 9.99% stake in Reliance Jio, India’s biggest telecom operator, for $5.7 billion. This will help cement a collaboration between WhatsApp and Reliance’s digital platforms. Jio Platforms includes mobile apps, broadband connectivity, smart devices, cloud computing, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, internet of things, augmented and mixed reality, and blockchain.
At a time when most Indian telecom firms are reeling under massive losses, Reliance Jio, owned by India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, has announced a deal that could further entrench its position as the market leader.
US-based social networking giant Facebook has bought a 9.99% stake in Jio Platforms for Rs43,574 crore ($5.7 billion), the two companies said in separate statements today (April 22).
Jio Platforms is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries (RIL) and the umbrella entity for all of Ambani’s digital and internet businesses.
It is evident that the future of telecom in the emerging world has gone beyond voice and pure data. MTN, Airtel, Glo and 9Mobile have moments ahead in Nigeria.
Jio's #strategy in #India has won big time.
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Is it that our telcos operate with handbrake on, or that they cannot innovate beyond voice and data bonanza, or the regulatory environment puts a ceiling on innovation, or what exactly? What's the worth of our biggest corporations? Here, a mere 10% goes for $5.7 billion. We need to hear something that sounds like this being dropped into our economy, the sound will obviously be melodious to our ears.
From Amazon to Zoom, from Netflix to Alibaba, we have been hearing and reading how firms are hitting big numbers in the midst of pandemic; so which of our firms are currently hitting big numbers? We need to hear that too, not just bailouts and depressing news.
I hope our telcos can learn from Reliance Jio that a lot can be done within their space, it cannot just be about simple stuff, the very basic things we all know telcos are there for. Time to look farther ahead and think deeper.
