Facebook Invested Rs 43,754 Crore to fight TikTok ?

Facebook has recently bought a 9.9% stake in Reliance Jio for Rs 43,574 crore – The deal will help Facebook battle rapidly growing Chinese apps like Tiktok which have attracted India’s youth along with competition from Japan’s Softbank , US heavyweights Google & Amazon and China’s Alibaba.

For Facebook, India has in recent years emerged as a critical market. The company has more users in India than any other country. Its WhatsApp chat service, which has attracted 340 million users and is about to launch a key payments service will take on incumbents Paytm, Google Pay, PhonePe and Amazon Pay.

Deal with Reliance Jio will give the social media giant a much needed foothold in a fast-growing massive retail/telecom market in India. This deals will also helps Reliance Industry (RIL) to significantly cut debt and become the first company with Zero Debt.  This deal will values the Jio at Rs 4.62 lakh crore ($65.95 billion). 

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A recent report by Cisco said India is poised to have more than 900 million internet users due to the increased penetration of affordable smartphones and cheaper internet plans. India will also have around 2.1 billion internet-connected devices by 2023, said the report. 

Trai has earlier banned the Facebook idea of providing free internet services.

Facebook has invested in Jio with the long term view on the investment in Jio Platforms like Reliance Retail and Facebook’s WhatsApp. These service have also entered into a commercial partnership agreement to further accelerate Reliance Retail’s new commerce business on the JioMart platform using WhatsApp and to support small businesses on WhatsApp.

Jio has accumulated some 340 million customers through a barrage of innovations, including offering cut-throat mobile internet prices and a diverse suite of products and including chat services, movies, games and music.