Helios Capital founder Samir Arora sees Jio Platforms as a high-conviction stock with reasonable returns.
Arora said Jio has enabled large-scale digital connectivity as well as built the network on which new-age companies in India are built. It has laid the foundational platform for them. The company’s scale is huge and it has a high potential for consistent growth. This makes it a high-conviction stock, he said.
Jio entered the telecom market in 2016, which was a turning point for the industry. Its aggressive pricing as well as free voice and data offerings led to market disruption, accelerated the shift to mobile broadband, which also triggered an enormous surge in data consumption.
A decade later, Jio has evolved to a broad digital platform spanning mobile services, entertainment, broadband, cloud and enterprise solutions.
As of June 30, 2026, Jio had 533 million customers, which included 284.9 million 5G users. Its network carred around 60% of the wireless data trafficin India last fiscal, while its wireless broadband network covered over 99% of India’s population, as per its red herring prospectus.
Now, the opportunity lies in monetizing this reach. Increasing data consumption, migration of users from 22G to 4G and 5G, expansion of fixed broadband as well as the cross-selling of digital services offers multiple avenues for growth. At the end of June 2026, as many as 261 million users in India were stilling using 2G networks, which represents a sizeable migration opportunity.
Jio Platform’s revenue from operations in FY26 was at 1.46 lakh crore, up 14.6% from the previous year. Its earnings before interest taxes depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) increased 18.8% to 76,255 crore and its net profit was up 15% at 30,049 crore from the previous year. Its EBITDA margin was at 51.9%.
The Jio IPO proceeds are expected to be utilized primarily to repay 27,500 crore of borrowings at Reliance Jio Infocomm and moving the business towards a net-debt-free position.
At the upper end of the Jio IPO price band of 1,119, the company is valued at 10.3 lakh crore, or around 34.3 times its FY26 earnings. The valuation puts a premium on its scale as well as growth opportunity and Arora’s investment thesis rests on the long runway for monetization as well as the central role Jio is set to play India’s expanding digital economy.
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