Sources: Reliance exchange filing and company draft documents as reported by CNBC, Business Today and PL Capital. Verify the final red herring prospectus (RHP) before bidding. Anchor allotment is usually a day before opening and basis of allotment about two working days after closing.

How to apply: bid through UPI in your broker app, choose “cut-off” so you are not rejected if the final price is the upper band, and keep money blocked in your bank account until allotment. Retail demand is the only part you compete in, so apply in multiple family demat accounts only if each applicant is genuinely eligible.

Jio Platforms is the holding company behind Reliance Jio, India’s largest telecom operator. It earns money in two broad ways: from consumers (mobile, home broadband, entertainment, cloud, smart-home products and AI assistants) and from businesses (enterprise connectivity, cloud and productivity tools, IoT, private 5G, security and AI-led products).

Think of Jio as a toll road for India’s data: when Indians stream, pay, work or learn online, a large share of that traffic rides on Jio’s network. The heavy spending to build that road (a nationwide standalone 5G rollout) is now largely done. Brokers point out that capex fell from about 49% of revenue in FY24 to about 23% in FY26, which is why cash flow is improving fast.

Ownership matters too. Reliance Industries holds 66.43% before the issue, with Meta’s affiliate at 9.98% and Google at 7.73%. Neither Meta nor Google is selling in this IPO.

Source: company draft documents as summarised by PL Capital. FY26 EBITDA works out to about ₹76,250 Cr (Zumedha calculation: revenue × margin).

Latest quarter: Q1 FY27 (April–June 2026)

EBITDA rose about 15% to ₹20,865 Cr with margin at 53.3%. Profit after tax rose 9.2% to ₹7,764 Cr, but fell about 2% from the previous quarter, because depreciation and finance costs rose after 5G assets were put to use. ARPU was ₹215.6, up only about 3% in a year with no tariff hike. In plain terms: the business is growing steadily, but profit growth is not yet running as fast as EBITDA.

A note on debt numbers

Jio’s reported 0.36x net debt to EBITDA looks tiny. Nomura uses a wider definition, a net debt of about ₹1.4 lakh crore that includes deferred spectrum payments and lease liabilities. Both are “right”; they simply count different things. We use the wider number in our valuation because spectrum dues are real cash obligations.

A discounted cash flow (DCF) asks: what are all of Jio’s future free cash flows worth in today’s rupees? We forecast 10 years, discount at 12% (our standard cost of capital for Indian large caps) and assume cash flows grow 5% a year forever after that.

How sensitive is the answer?

Reading it simply: you need a lower discount rate or stronger long-term growth than our base case to justify ₹1,119 on cash flows alone. If you buy at ₹1,119 and our forecast is right, your long-run annual return works out to about 11.2% (about 11.4% at ₹1,065), a touch under the 12% we ask for. That is “fair”, not “bargain”. Our DCF also gives no separate value to AI, satellite or overseas technology licensing, which is where the upside surprise could come from.

All forecasts above are Zumedha estimates, not company guidance. D&A and capex ratios are approximated from reported data.

Sources: Business Today (Swastika, Emkay, Nomura), IndMoney, Motilal Oswal via Outlook Business, company results. Airtel’s revenue includes Africa, so the growth comparison is not like-for-like.

What this tells you. Jio looks cheaper than Airtel on trailing P/E but dearer on forward EV/EBITDA. Airtel earns more per user and keeps more of each rupee as EBITDA, and Nomura argues that its discount to Jio is unjustified. Jio’s case for a premium rests on scale, faster-looking EBITDA growth, home broadband and a cleaner balance sheet after the IPO.

Blending our DCF (₹963) with the relative value (≈ ₹1,100) in equal parts gives a weighted fair value of about ₹1,030, our anchor for the rest of this article.

NAV: book value is a weak anchor for a network business whose real worth is its subscribers and cash flows, and we did not have the audited FY26 net worth in the material we reviewed, so we do not assign NAV any weight.

EPV (the “no-growth” floor): if Jio never grew again and earned its current operating profit forever, the business would be worth about ₹198 per share at a 12% discount rate. That means only about 18% of the ₹1,119 price is backed by today’s earnings power, and the other 82% is a bet on growth, tariff hikes and digital services. This is normal for a growth leader, but it shows why the stock is sensitive to any slowdown in tariffs or subscriber additions.

The IPO is priced well below the bullish estimates floated earlier, so a good part of the “valuation correction” has already happened before you apply. Reports said investors pushed back on the original ask, and the enterprise value cut from the earlier $133 bn expectation to about $118 bn reflects that. However, early estimates were optimistic by nature; the current Street anchor of about 12x forward EV/EBITDA is what we compare with, and that is where our fair value lands.

Demand looks strong: Bloomberg reported indications of more than $20 billion of bids against a roughly $3.2 billion issue, with global funds including Fidelity, Allianz and Capital Group showing interest. Two brokerages we reviewed, Emkay Global and Swastika Investmart, rate it “subscribe”. Please note that the same coverage flags valuation, regulation, competition and group-dependence risks.

Buy range (relative to our fair value of ₹1,030)

Sell range

Listing math: 14 lots (168 shares) at a ₹220 GMP is a gross gain of about ₹36,960; after 20% short-term capital gains tax that is about ₹29,570, before brokerage and charges. GMP is not an official price.

Three ways the next 12 months could play out

Our earnings path (Zumedha estimates): net profit of about ₹35,000 Cr in FY27, ₹42,500 Cr in FY28, ₹49,000 Cr in FY29 and ₹55,500 Cr in FY30, giving earnings per share of roughly ₹38, ₹46, ₹53 and ₹60 on 920.9 crore shares. Price is then earnings per share times the P/E multiple the market will pay at that time. We assume the multiple eases from today’s 33x as growth matures.

Before tax, brokerage and any dividends. Exit P/E assumptions: bear 20x / 19x / 17x, base 25x / 24x / 24x, bull 30x / 28x / 26x on forward EPS. Probability weights we use: 25% bear, 50% base, 25% bull, which give an expected return of roughly +11% in year 1, +23% over two years and +46% over five years (about 8% a year).

What the table means in practice

• Year 1: the realistic range is about −20% to +45%, with the middle near +10%. Short-term outcomes depend heavily on the timing of the next tariff hike, which Nomura expects after the listing.
• Year 2: returns look better if the hike is absorbed and profit growth accelerates. Base case is about 10% a year, below the 12% we require, because we assume the P/E keeps compressing.
• Long term: from here, returns will come mostly from earnings growth (we model about 15% a year on EPS to FY31), partly offset by a lower multiple. You are buying a steady compounder, not a multibagger.
• Tax: selling within 12 months attracts 20% short-term capital gains tax. After 12 months the rate is 12.5% on long-term gains above ₹1.25 lakh in a financial year (rates unchanged for FY 2026-27).

Mega-IPOs do not always pop. Hyundai India (2024) and LIC (2022) both debuted at modest discounts despite heavy publicity. Jio’s strong demand and tiny offer (only about 2.9% of the post-issue company is being sold fresh) argue for a firm listing, but nothing is guaranteed.

• Tariff hikes. The sector has not raised mobile prices for a while; analysts now expect the next round in the second or third quarter of FY27. Management says ARPU can rise 4–5% a year from subscriber mix alone. A 15–20% hike would lift profits sharply, because most of it drops straight to EBITDA.
• 5G and migration. Moving remaining 2G and 4G users to 5G plans lifts data usage and spending per customer.
• Home broadband. The fixed wireless and fibre business is expected to be the next big growth engine, with Jio already holding about 43% of fixed broadband customers.
• Enterprise, cloud and AI. Managed services, cloud, IoT, private 5G and AI products, plus selling Jio’s in-house network technology to operators overseas, are upside options not yet in our DCF.
• Falling capex and lower interest. With the 5G build behind it and about ₹27,500 Cr of debt being repaid, free cash flow should rise and finance costs should ease. Brokers expect Jio’s EBITDA to compound at 15–18% a year over FY26–29.

Pre-issue figures from company draft documents (via PL Capital). Post-issue is our calculation on 920.9 crore shares. Mutual fund and FPI holders cannot be listed until after the IPO; check NSE/BSE shareholding filings after listing.

Notice how small the freshly offered slice is. With so little stock reaching the market initially, price can behave differently from a normal large listing, which is why we would not rely on listing-day behaviour to judge fair value.

If you already own Reliance Industries shares: Nomura estimates Reliance’s Jio stake equals roughly 41–43% of Reliance’s share price, so you are already heavily exposed to Jio. Applying in the IPO adds to that concentration.

Our direct answer: this is not a deep-value IPO, so waiting for a “correction” is a legitimate strategy, but we would not call applying a mistake either. The sensible middle path is a measured application now, with cash kept aside to add below ₹1,030 if the stock gets there.