Google to invest ₹33,737 crore in Jio Platforms, taking 7.73 percent stake in the company

This is the first investment from the Google For India Digitization Fund announced earlier this week.

Google has signed an agreement to invest $4.5 billion (INR 33,737 crore) in Jio Platforms, taking a 7.73 percent stake in the company, pending regulatory review in India. This is the first investment from the Google For India Digitization Fund announced earlier this week, which aims to accelerate India’s digital economy over the next five to seven years through a mix of equity investments, partnerships, and operational, infrastructure and ecosystem investments.

Google and Jio Platforms have entered into a commercial agreement to jointly develop an entry-level affordable smartphone with optimizations to the Android operating system and the Play Store. Together, both the brands will rethink, from the ground up, how millions of users in India can become owners of smartphones. This effort will unlock new opportunities, further power the vibrant ecosystem of applications and push innovation to drive growth for the new Indian economy.

Google’s mission with Android has been to bring the power of computing to everyone. The brand thinks the time is right to increase its commitment to India significantly, in collaboration with local companies, and this partnership with Jio is the first step. It wants to work with Jio and other leaders in the local ecosystem to ensure that smartphones—together with the apps and services in the Play Store—are within reach for many more Indians across the country.

Google opened its first Indian campuses in Bangalore and Hyderabad in 2004. Since then, it has made India central to its Next Billion Users initiative—designed to ensure the internet is useful for people coming online for the first time. The brand also improved its apps and services so they’re relevant in more Indian languages and created offline versions for those facing network constraints.

Google extended its tools to small businesses, sought to close digital divides with initiatives like Internet Saathi, and has increasingly focused on helping India harness AI. More and more, apps created by Google for India—like Google Pay or our Read Along language-learning app—influence what it does globally.

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