Jio Facebook Deal
                     Jio – Facebook Deal
Fb’s investment
• Facebook will purchase a 10 percent stake in India's 
Reliance Industries digital sector for Rs. 43,574 crores, 
as the social media platform is looking to exploit its 
widely popular WhatsApp chat service to offer digital 
payment services. 
Source : Google Images
Shareholder
• The deal will help the Indian conglomerate cut debt that 
has piled up in its expensive drive to win top spot for its 
telecom company Jio Infocomm. 
• Facebook investment will make it Jio Projects Ltd's biggest 
minority shareholder
Aim of Whatsapp
• WhatsApp is trying to obtain approval for rolling out 
its digital payment service in India that will see it 
competing with the likes of Google Pay and Paytm in a 
competitive market. 
• A Facebook spokesperson said permission to extend 
beyond the beta phase has not yet come through. 
The Opportunity
• The messaging service in India has 40 crore users, its biggest 
market, touching almost 80 per cent of the country's 
smartphone users. 
• The partnership will also help the social media giant exploit 
WhatsApp to partner with JioMart, Reliance's e-commerce 
platform, which links small businesses to clients.
The Opportunist
• As per Facebook founder CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a 
statement: (India) is in the midst of a big digital revolution and 
organizations like Jio have been instrumental in bringing 
hundreds of millions of Indians and small businesses online.
Source : Google Images
Reliance’s fund Raising
• For Reliance, whose debt pile has risen to over $40 billion 
(around Rs. 3 lakh crores) as of September, the alliance will 
bring in much-needed funds to fulfill its pledge of rising net 
debt to zero by March 2021.
Source : Google Images
Win for Both
• Revenue jumped more than 25 per cent in the quarter 
of December at these two companies together. 
• Financial Times reported last month that Facebook 
was in talks for a 10 percent stake in Jio but the talks 
were halted because of global travel bans in the midst 
of coronavirus outbreak. 
Source : Google Images
The Deal Advisor
• Jio said that the deal's financial advisor was Morgan 
Stanley. 
• The counsels were AZB & Associates, and Davis Polk & 
Wardwell.
Source : Google Images
Bigger Question
• But will the merger that brings together the biggest social media 
company in the world and the organization that is a pioneer in 
everything from oil to data lead to more consolidation and 
fewer players, as happened in the telecoms sector? 
• It is a major question mark and the contract should not be 
passed without scrutinizing that closely. The future of the 
Internet economy of India, for, is at stake.
Source : Google Images