Jio Platforms – the country’s biggest initial public offering (IPO) – made a blockbuster stock market debut on Wednesday, with its shares surging nearly 27% over the issue price of Rs 1,119 per share. With the strong listing, the telecom giant became India’s second-most valuable listed company, behind only its parent Reliance Industries (RIL).

On its first day of trading, the stock opened at Rs 1,358, a premium of 21.36% over its issue price, and climbed further to close at Rs 1,419, giving IPO investors a handsome 26.81% return in a single day.

The rally pushed Jio Platforms’ market capitalisation to Rs 13.05 lakh crore, placing it behind RIL, valued at Rs 15.68 lakh crore. According to Prime Database, Jio Platforms delivered the highest first-day gain among Indian IPOs with an issue size exceeding Rs 15,000 crore.

Other mega issues, including Hyundai Motor India and Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), had struggled on their market debuts. Even the National Stock Exchange (NSE), another major IPO, had managed a modest listing-day gain of just 0.84%.

For RIL, the listing has unlocked enormous value in its telecom business. With a 64.48% stake in Jio Platforms, this holding was worth Rs 8.42 lakh crore at Wednesday’s closing price,

The value creation is even more striking considering Reliance’s weighted average acquisition cost of just Rs 89.58 per share.

Jio Platforms also set a record for shareholder participation. The company said it had 7.98 million shareholders at the time of listing, the highest for any Indian company making its stock market debut.

With its valuation crossing $100 billion at listing, Jio joined a select group of global companies, including Saudi Aramco, Alibaba and Meta, that achieved this milestone when they entered the public markets.

What made Jio’s debut even more remarkable was that it came on a day when the broader market was in the red. The BSE Sensex fell 353 points, while the Nifty 50 declined 51 points. Jio, however, bucked the weak sentiment as investors piled into the newly listed stock.

The counter also dominated trading activity, accounting for 23.5% and 18.8% of the turnover in the BSE and NSE, respectively.

The listing has also created a windfall for employees holding stock options. According to the company’s prospectus, options covering an aggregate 7.34 million shares that were exercised earlier, estimated to gain Rs 1,033 crore at the closing market price. The company has not disclosed the employee-wise distribution of these benefits.