Mumbai: Facebook on Wednesday announced that it has invested US$5.7 billion for a 9.99 per cent stake in Reliance Jio. With this, Facebook is now the largest minority shareholder in Jio Platforms Limited.

Noting on the partnership with Facebook, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) chairman Mukesh Ambani said, “All of us at Reliance are humbled by the opportunity to welcome Facebook as our long-term partner in continuing to grow and transform the digital ecosystem of India for the benefit of all Indians.”

“The synergy between Jio and Facebook will help realise Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Digital India’ Mission with its two ambitious goals — ‘Ease of Living’ and ‘Ease of Doing Business’ – for every single category of Indian people without exception. In the post-Corona era, I am confident of India’s economic recovery and resurgence in the shortest period of time. The partnership will surely make an important contribution to this transformation,” he added.

Mark Zuckerberg on a Facebook post said, “There’s a lot going on in the world right now, but I wanted to share an update on our work in India. Facebook is teaming up with Jio Platforms -- we’re making a financial investment, and more than that, we’re committing to work together on some major projects that will open up commerce opportunities for people across India.”

India, in recent years, has been emerged as a serious market for the social media giant. Facebook is making a buzz in the country, and India has more users than any other country in the world. Facebook also owns chat service WhatsApp, which is being used by 340 million people in India.

The Facebook venture comes six months after Reliance Industries, which is Jio’s parent company rearranged its company construction to make the telecom unit net debt-free, also flagging the way for a stake sale.