Reliance Acquires Stake in Glance InMobi

Reliance Jio may have postponed the launch of its JioNext smart phones by 2 months due to chip shortage but it is putting the time to good use. In a move to enrich the digital ecosystem of Reliance Jio, it plans to acquire a stake in Glance InMobi for a consideration of $300 million or approximately Rs.2,200 crore at current exchange rates.

Check - Reliance Jio Puts off Smart Phone Launch

Interestingly, Alphabet which is the holding company of Google, already has a stake in InMobi and has been mentoring the start-up for some time now. With Google already having announced a major investment in Reliance Digital as well as its commitment to a long term strategic partnership, this 3-way relationship surely does make a lot of sense.

It is relevant to understand where exactly Glance InMobi fits into the Reliance digital ecosystem. Glance InMobi specializes in pushing curated news and entertainment content onto the lock screens of mobile phones. This is an interesting property with a high visibility and a constant interaction with the user who finds interesting content thrown at them.

Incidentally, the platform is also versatile. It uses artificial intelligence to personal content in various languages. More importantly, this is a unique property as the lock-screen is something few people in the modern world can avoid. Hence, if the content is curated and personalized, it can bring to the table tremendous recall value.

Glance InMobi became a Unicorn with valuation in excess of $1 billion in December 2020 itself. At that point, Glance InMobi had raised funding from Google and from early investors, Mithril. The big question is; how does this kind of purchase add value to Reliance and how does it really fit into the larger scheme of things.

Reliance sees a great fit with its proposed launch of the Jio Next phone. That is already being touted as the cheapest feature-rich smart phone sold at the price of basic phones. It is estimated that the 115 million active daily users of the Glance InMobi platform spend an average of 25 minutes daily on the platform. This gives access to lock-screen property.

It surely looks like Reliance is leaving no stone unturned to fully monetize its smart phone launch. Glance InMobi will be one more addition to the ecosystem of Reliance Digital.

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