India is a very special and important country: Mark Zuckerberg

Today in India, Facebook hosted the Facebook Fuel for India 2020 event. On the sidelines of the event, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had a conversation with Reliance Industries president Mukesh Ambani, in which the two business icons discussed several things, including the impact of Jio-WhatsApp.

"WhatsApp has hundreds of millions of subscribers in India. Jio has hundreds of millions of subscribers in India," Mukesh Ambani said.

He further added, "This means Jio brings digital connectivity, WhatsApp now with WhatsApp Pay brings digital interactivity, and the ability to move to close transactions and create value and Jio Mart brings the unmatched online and offline retail opportunity, that gives our small shops which exist in villages and small towns in India, a chance to digitize and be at par with anybody else in the world."

Other than Jio and WhatsApp, Zuckerberg and Ambani also discussed Facebook's investment in Jio Platforms. For a quick recap, this year in April, Facebook announced that it was investing $5.7 billion in Jio Platform for a 9.99% equity stake in the company. Apart from investment, the two companies had announced that they would focus on 60 million micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in India. Additionally, Reliance Retail and WhatsApp partnered to 'accelerate Reliance Retail's New Commerce business on the JioMart platform using WhatsApp and to support small businesses on WhatsApp.'

Now, coming to the Facebook Fuel for India 2020 event, the two business icons shed some light on what led to this decision.

"At Facebook, we like to say that we are in the business of serving small businesses. And nowhere is this more true than in India. This is especially important because small businesses here will be a key part of the global recovery going forward. And we are focused on making sure we build the best tools for them...And that's one of the reasons why we wanted to partner with Jio, which has played such a key role in giving hundreds of millions of Indians access to the benefits of the internet, everything that it can provide, and fostering this entrepreneurial culture," Zuckerberg shared on occasion.

"Mark, we have our own example of how Jio and Facebook concluded our partnership right in the middle of lockdown...I have no hesitation in going on record that it is your investment that set the ball rolling not only for Jio but for the Indian FDI which has been the largest-ever in its history. And our partnership between Jio and Facebook will actually demonstrate that it is great for India, Indians, and small Indian businesses," the RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani said.