Facebook In Talks To Buy Stake In Reliance Jio: Report

Social networking giant Facebook is in talks to buy a multi-billion stake in Indian conglomerate Reliance’s telecommunications arm Jio, The Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing two people familiar with the matter.

According to the report, the Menlo Park, California-based company is close to signing a preliminary deal for a 10 percent share in the telecom company that disrupted how India uses the internet by providing access to cheap data and smartphones. The timetable of the deal has been affected by global lockdowns due to the coronavirus disease outbreak.

Jio has managed to garner a whopping 370 million subscribers since its 2016 launch and the potential deal will give Facebook, which owns messaging service WhatsApp, greater and deeper access into what continues to be an untapped market with millions of new smartphone users.

WhatsApp recently announced that it had 2 billion users across the globe and according to earlier disclosures, has more than 400 million users in India alone. Last year, India overtook the United States to become the second-largest smartphone market in the world, behind only China.