Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani has termed the launch of Reliance Jio the biggest riskiest gamble of his life—one that might have given him very little returns but would have been worth every rupee, he says.
Looking back at the early doubts over the ambitious telecom project, Ambani reflected in an interview to McKinsey & Company, a global consulting firm. "The biggest risk we have taken till now was Jio. At that time, it was our own money we were putting in, and I was the majority owner," he remembered.
As per Ambani, even the Reliance board had questioned if Jio would be financially successful. Nevertheless, he was not dissuaded. "In the worst-case scenario, we will not make much of a return. That's fine because it's our money. But then, as Reliance, this will be the best philanthropy that we will ever have done in India—because we will have digitised India, and thus totally transformed India," he said.
When Jio was launched in 2016, many analysts doubted whether India was ready for such a sweeping leap into digital connectivity. But Ambani’s bold bet on building a next-generation telecom infrastructure from the ground up quickly proved transformative.
Providing free voice calls and among the lowest data tariffs in the world, Jio shook up the telecom business, compelling rivals to slash prices sharply and roll out digital services at breakneck speed. In a brief time, it transformed India's digital landscape.
Now, Jio is not just the largest telecommunications company in India—with more than 470 million customers—but also a significant player in emerging fields like 5G, cloud computing, and AI. The startup that had appeared to be an enormous gamble has turned out to be a pillar of India's digital economy.
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