Google  investing  in Reliance Jio Platforms

What was Announced ?

Google will be investing Rs 33,737 crore for a 7.7 percent stake in Reliance Jio Platforms. The announcement was made by Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani during RIL's 43rd Annual General Meeting on July 15, 2020. 

Mukesh Ambani  announced that Reliance Jio and Google together will develop an android-based smartphone operating system to design affordable entry-level 4G-5G smartphones.

What is the Objective of the deal?

The Reliance Jio-Google partnership aims to make India  more affordable 4G-5G smartphones.  This will increase the accessibility of smart phones and help accelerate India's digital economy.

What is the Significance of the deal?

Reliance Jio has attracted investments worth over USD 15 billion in just a matter of few months amid COVID lockdown.

Qualcomm Ventures was the latest to invest Rs 730 crore in Jio Platforms for a 0.15 percent stake.

 Overall, Reliance Jio has seen 12 investments within 12 weeks. 

Facebook was the first one to announce an investment worth Rs 43574 crore in Jio for a 9.9 percent stake on April 22, 2020. 

Over the years, the company has announced deal after deal with a number of major global players bringing in Rs 152,000 crore by selling about 33% of its stake in Jio Platforms.

These include:

• Rs 43,574 crore from Facebook.
• Rs 33,737 crore from Google.
• Rs 11,367 crore from KKR, an American global investment firm.
• Rs 11,367 from Vista, a private equity firm
• Rs 9,094 crore from Mubadla, a sovereign wealth fund from Abu Dhabi.
• Smaller investments from General Atlantic, Silver Lake, Intel, Qualcomm and others.

Data is the new oil [in the new world order],” said Mukesh Ambani . “And data is the new wealth.

India’s data must be controlled and owned by Indian people – and not by corporates, especially global corporations.

Why  Facebook and Google are  investing in Reliance?

-Recently  India has  banned 59 apps, all owned by Chinese companies, citing data concerns .

-Sections of India’s “data sovereignty” movement have long called for India to put major fetters on all global companies that collect data.

-Over the last few years, India has signaled its intention to move towards more protectionist laws governing the internet.

-Through this Facebook and Google will explore the Indian lucrative Indian IT Sector trough it  aim of zero net debt” of RIL will be fulfilled .