Jio investment first, biggest of India investment plans: Google CEO Sundar Pichai

Google’s investment of $4.5 billion (Rs 33,737 crore) in Jio Platforms Ltd, for 7.73 percent stake 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, CEO Sundar Pichai said.

Pichai, announcing the partnership with Reliance Jio on Wednesday added, more work needs to be done to provide digital access to billions of Indians who still don't own a smartphone with optimizations to the Android operating system and the Play Store.

“Through this partnership with Jio Platforms we see the chance to have an even greater impact that either company could have alone.

Earlier this week Pichai announced the ‘Google For India digitization fund’ committing Rs 75,000 crore to accelerate India's digital economy for the next five years.

“Our investment of $4.5 million in Jio is the first and biggest investment we will make towards this effort. I'm excited that our collaboration will focus on increasing access for hundreds of million of users who don't currently own a smartphone while improving the mobile experience for all,” Pichai said at the 43rd Annual General Meeting of Reliance Industries Limited.

“Smartphones and affordable data have enabled millions of Indians to come online. Reliance and Jio, in particular, deserves a good deal of credit for this progress But there is more work to do to connect every Indian to the opportunity that technologies create,” he said,

Pichai also lauded Jio’s investments to expand telecommunications infrastructure, low-cost phones and affordable internet for having changed the way its hundreds of millions of subscribers find news and information, communicate with one another, use services and run businesses, he said in a blogpost.