Jio turns 10: Akash Ambani credits employees for a decade of growth

MUMBAI: Ten years, half a billion-plus customers and a digital revolution later, Jio is marking a decade in business with its chairman looking back at the people behind the numbers.

Akash Ambani, chairman of Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, has thanked employees for helping turn the company’s ambitious vision into one of India’s largest digital businesses.

In a letter to employees marking Jio’s 10 years of commercial operations, Akash Ambani put the spotlight firmly on its workforce rather than its financial milestones.

“Whatever pride I feel today belongs to you far more than it belongs to me,” Akash said in the letter.

Jio began commercial operations a decade ago under the leadership of Mukesh Ambani, with the aim of making digital connectivity more affordable and accessible across India.

What started as a telecom disruption has since grown into a much broader technology business. Jio has expanded into broadband, digital products and enterprise services, while playing a major role in India’s shift towards 5G.

Today, the company says it serves more than half a billion customers and has helped build what Akash Ambani described as the foundation of Digital India at unprecedented scale.

For Akash, however, the decade is about more than customer numbers, network expansion or technology launches.

“The story of these ten years is not written in numbers. It is written by the people who built Jio,” Akash said.

He credited teams across the organisation with taking on difficult challenges, questioning conventional ways of working and developing products and technologies while keeping customers at the centre.

That willingness to move quickly and think differently, he said, has been central to Jio’s evolution.

Akash Ambani also acknowledged the role of his father, thanking Reliance Industries Limited chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani for the vision and guidance behind the business. He also credited Jio’s leadership team with steering the company through different stages of its growth.

The anniversary has a personal significance for Akash too. Jio was where he began his professional career, giving him a front-row seat to the building of one of India’s most closely watched businesses.

“Jio is where I began my professional life. I have grown with this company,” Akash said.

He added that his experience at Jio had shaped his understanding of building businesses, working with teams and understanding India’s changing technology landscape.

The chairman also highlighted something he considers more valuable than any individual business metric: customer trust.

“That trust is the most valuable thing we own,” Akash said.

The next decade, meanwhile, is unlikely to be simply a repeat of the first.

Akash Ambani said Jio has moved well beyond its original identity as a telecom operator and is now developing technology across connectivity, digital products, enterprise solutions and artificial intelligence.

“Jio today is much more than a telecom company,” Akash said.

He expects AI to reshape how consumers and businesses work, create and solve problems, while continued advances in connectivity could open up new uses for technology.

For Jio, that means staying ahead of rapid technological change while holding on to the principles that have guided the company since its launch: thinking big, building for India, putting customers first and making technology more accessible.

The 10th anniversary also comes as Jio Platforms moves towards a potentially landmark public listing.

Jio Platforms filed draft papers for an initial public offering in June. The proposed issue could raise around $4 billion, or roughly Rs 37,700 crore, potentially making it one of India’s biggest IPOs.

The draft documents propose up to 27 crore fresh shares, equivalent to about 2.9 per cent of the company’s post-issue equity base.

At the 49th annual general meeting of Reliance Industries Limited, Mukesh Ambani described the Jio IPO as the group’s most significant value-creation event of the year.

He said the IPO process is being led by his children, Akash Ambani, Isha Ambani and Anant Ambani, who will spearhead the next phase of Jio’s growth and value creation.

For a company that began its commercial journey by shaking up India’s telecom market, the next chapter is shaping up to be considerably broader.

Jio’s first decade was about connecting India at scale. Its second could be about building the technology that powers what comes next.