FACEBOOK’S $5.7 BILLION BET ON INDIA THROUGH JIO - PART 2

What is Jio Platforms?

 Jio Platforms is a technology subsidiary of Reliance Industries that came to light in 2010 when Infotel Broadband Services Limited (ISBL) spent $2.7 billion to win pan-India license during broadband spectrum auction. Shortly after the auction, Reliance Industries took a 95 percent stake in ISBL. In 2013, Mukesh Ambani renamed ISBL as Jio Platforms, which operates Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited as a wholly owned subsidiary. Jio platforms is described as a next-generation technology platform focused on delivering digital services across India. Jio Platforms claims to build a digital society powered by Reliance Jio‘s network technology. Jio platform was growing through mergers and acquisitions such as Saavn’s merger with Jio Music in 2018 and Haptick acquisition in 2019.

 

The power of content, commerce, and community supported by the mobile network can be unleashed for these services at scale, making the impact widespread from e-commerce to telecom to mobile payments and potentially even healthcare and education. To put it another way, Jio was a bet on zero marginal costs — or, at a minimum, drastically lower marginal costs than its competitors. This meant that the optimal strategy was — you know what is coming! — to spend a massive amount of money up front and then seek to serve the greatest number of consumers in order to get maximum leverage on that up-front investment.

What is the synergy between Facebook and Jio Platform?

 Facebook has invested in the Jio platform to create and unlock meaningful value through Network Synergy. The two companies could leverage each other’s strengths to build a Connected Ecosystem comprising of digital payments, telecom, and offline/online commerce. The deal will unlock a huge network effect with the combined power of Facebook and Jio’s subscribers across plays in commerce and payments.

 

What is Network Effect?

 Network effects are the incremental benefit gained by an existing user for each new user that joins the network. There are two types of network effects:

 ·    Direct network effects - Also known as the same-side effects. The value of service simply goes up as the number of users goes up. 

 ·   Indirect network effects - Also known as cross-side effects. With indirect network effects, the value of the service increases for one user group when a new user of a different user group joins the network

 

Platform Business Cost Model

Platforms boast higher profit margins and higher price-to-revenue multiples. Perhaps this explains some of the high valuations we see in platform businesses today including the recent Facebook – Reliance Jio deal.

 

Platforms business have two or more user groups exchanging value with one another. The more consumers on the network, the more valuable that network is to producers, and vice versa. The deal will jointly create an ecosystem that take advantage of Facebook’s high daily active users and Jio’s platform assets. For Facebook, this deal presents an opportunity to leverage the partner’s significant reach in India and explore the next-billion-user landscape. For Reliance Jio, the business will not be dependent solely on how successful the next generation is, as it will continue to grow with the strategic partner.

 

TO BE CONTINUED…