Google confirms it’s investing $4.5 billion in India’s Jio Platforms four months after Facebook’s punt on the company

Google confirms it’s investing $4.5 billion in India’s Jio Platforms four months after Facebook’s punt on the company

Sundar Pichai, Alphabet CEO.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Google confirmed Wednesday it's investing $4.5 billion into Indian digital services firm Jio Platforms in exchange for a 7.7% stake in the company, which is valued at $65 billion. 

The investment, reported by Bloomberg on Tuesday and confirmed by Google VP Sameer Samat in a blog post, comes less than four months after Facebook said it was pumping $5.7 billion into Jio Platforms. 

Owned by Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries, Jio Platforms operates the Jio Infocomm telecom network, which has amassed over 388 million 4G subscribers since launching in 2016. Today it is India's top telco, and also has several apps and other services in e-commerce and broadband. 

Google said it plans to jointly develop an "entry-level affordable smartphone" with Jio Platforms that will be optimized for Android and the Play Store. 

"Together we are excited to rethink, from the ground up, how millions of users in India can become owners of smartphones," wrote Samat in the blog post. "This effort will unlock new opportunities, further power the vibrant ecosystem of applications and push innovation to drive growth for the new Indian economy."

Samat went on to point out that the majority of people in India still don't have