What Jio’s rise past Tata tells us

Jio’s shares ended their first trading week soaring nearly 28 per cent above their offer price, helping Reliance overtake Tata as India’s most valuable business group on the stock market. Jio itself became the country’s second-most valuable listed company, behind its parent, Reliance Industries.

For Mukesh Ambani, that is a remarkable result a decade after Jio began commercial services in September 2016. Jio’s rise also says something about how large businesses earn their place in people’s lives.

Making a useful service more affordable can attract customers on a scale that years of advertising alone cannot achieve. That leaves Jio with a responsibility beyond rewarding its shareholders. Affordable access helped it grow; keeping that access within reach should remain central to how it operates.

Ambani’s telecom ambitions began well before Jio. He had helped build Reliance Infocomm, which went to his younger brother, Anil, following the family split in 2005.

An agreement between the brothers restricted Mukesh’s return to the sector. After they scrapped it in 2010, Reliance bought a company with the rights needed to offer broadband services across India.

By the time Jio launched, smartphones had widened the opportunity. People could watch videos, use apps and access services through their phones, provided they could afford the internet connection.

Ambani was returning to a business he knew, but people’s use of phones had changed. There was now much more they could do with the connection he wanted to provide.

His return is often told as a story of determination. But plenty of business owners have determination without the money to spend years building a network.

Reliance had those resources. It could spend heavily before Jio began commercial services, then offer free introductory calls and data to encourage people to try it.

Timing helped too. Smartphones were making the internet more useful, while the cost of getting connected remained important to customers.

Jio brought these things together: a network, financial backing and an offer people wanted. Its rise shows how much can be achieved when money and technology are put towards meeting an everyday need.

That is a more useful lesson than treating success as the reward for ambition alone. An idea must reach people at a price they are willing to pay, and the company needs enough money to keep delivering it.

For someone deciding whether to sign up, the family history was unlikely to be the main consideration. Getting more from a phone without spending too much offered a clearer reason.

Winning customers is one challenge. Giving them a reason to stay is another, especially after the introductory offers have ended.

Jio’s early appeal was easy to understand: people could try its network through free introductory services. A decade later, they have every reason to judge it more broadly, on coverage, service and the value of each recharge.

A rising share price does not tell a customer whether a call will connect. Nor does it show whether someone will help when a payment goes through but a service fails.

These are ordinary concerns, but they deserve attention when a company’s success is celebrated. The experience of using a service should matter alongside the number of people paying for it.

Jio needs to earn money to maintain and improve its network. Customers, in turn, should see the benefit through reliable connections, useful plans and support that resolves problems.

There is no need to assume profits and affordability cannot work together. Good value gives people a reason to stay, while a healthy business can keep improving its services.

Reliance moving ahead of Tata shows how far Ambani’s return to telecom has taken him. A business ambition interrupted by the family split has helped change the order among India’s biggest business groups.

But Jio was already serving customers before its shares began trading. The listing gave investors a separate way to buy into it; the company itself took years to build.

Tata losing first place does not mean its businesses suddenly became less useful. People will continue to judge the companies they deal with through the products they buy and the service they receive.

That is a fairer measure for both groups. A stock market ranking can change without making an immediate difference to someone’s day.

Jio now serves more than 500 million subscribers. They have practical reasons to care about what it does next.

A dropped connection, a confusing plan or an unresolved complaint affects them more directly than a change in corporate rankings. A company of Jio’s size should have the resources to take those concerns seriously.

Ambani has built a business that helped Reliance move ahead of Tata. Continuing to give customers good value would make that achievement meaningful to the people who helped make it possible.