NEW DELHI/OAKLAND: Alphabet's Google will buy a 7.7per cent stake for US$4.5 billion in Jio Platforms, taking a seat on its board alongside another big name backer Facebook to help the digital arm of Reliance Industries realise its lofty ambitions.
"As we end our current cycle of capital raising, we are delighted to welcome another strategic partner into Jio," Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani said at the company's annual shareholders meeting hosted via a webcast. The deal with Google will bolster Reliance's tech ambitions, such as building smart homes, using solutions similar to Amazon.com Inc's Alexa voice assistant, connected cars and security systems.Jio and Google will also partner to built a low-cost"4G or even 5G smartphone" for India, Ambani said, in a move that is likely to get tens of millions of Indians to use mobile internet for the first time.
Jio Infocomm, the mainstay of Jio Platforms and India's largest mobile carrier with more than 387 million users, will also widen Google's reach in a country where just about 500 million of its 1.3 billion population use the internet.