- Facebook is in talks to acquire a 10% stake in Reliance JIO – A superstar vertical of Reliance Industries.
It was 2016 when India’s telecom industry welcomed a new entrant – Reliance JIO. Within 3 years, the company went on with its disruption journey to become the largest telecom operator nationwide. Having more than 7 telecom operators at a time to a monopolistic scenario in the telecom industry talks about Reliance Industries and Reliance Jio’s potential. Everyone now desires to have their stake in Reliance, because they know the company is there for a long time and it’s the cream of the crop.
Can you think of a disrupter of social media on the internet? The world was connected through Orkut – scraps, testimonials, and virtual communities. After Google’s Orkut being hit hard by a JavaScript worm – Bom Sabado and quite a few other breaches, social media called for a change.
It was that time when Facebook popped up which was a much-secured platform and offered a whole new experience of social media interactions. Although Orkut was officially shut down in 2014 the game-changer Facebook took the lead in 2010-12.
Now Facebook is not just Facebook. It’s Instagram and WhatsApp as well! Do you know one common thing about our two disruptors? People from around the world are willing to have their stake in Reliance as well as in Facebook.
You must be wondering why are we talking about the two disruptors? Well, the news of the hour is that Facebook might acquire a 10% stake in Reliance Jio – which is said to be a multi-billion-dollar deal.
Analysts of Bernstein believe that Reliance Jio is valued not less than $60 billion. Mukesh Ambani has invested over $25 billion in this venture for over three years. Reliance Jio has more than 370 million subscriber bases making it one of the only two players of India’s telecom industry
Facebook wanted to expand its free internet initiative in India but it didn’t get much popularity and was never a success. Reliance Jio owns a suite of services like JioSaavn – music streaming services, JioTV – on-demand television service and JioPay – payment services.
By acquiring a stake in Reliance Jio, Facebook will be reaching out to those users. Short-video platform TikTok is making times tough for Facebook. Acquiring a stake in Reliance Jio should definitely help Facebook to get back the lost market share.
Summing Up:
Reliance Jio managed by India’s wealthiest man Mukesh Ambani should welcome the talks of Facebook acquiring a stake in Reliance Jio. Through this, 2 visionaries – Mark Zuckerberg and the Ambanis will come together.
Who knows this might just be a reason for another disruption? Although Reliance Industries are not having the best of the times, it is just one of the phases which too shall pass on.
With Facebook’s interest in acquiring a stake in Reliance Jio, we can hope for some good news once again.
