The partnership with Jio would allow Facebook chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg to step up his expansion in a country that is rapidly embracing online payment and e-commerce as more people get smartphones.

Reliance Jio Infocomm burst onto the Indian wireless telecommunications market about four years ago, quickly moving into a position of dominance by offering free plans and undercutting rivals. Working with Facebook would be a boost to the ambitions of Ambani, the richest man in Asia, who has been remaking his energy conglomerate as India’s first titan of e-commerce.

The purchase is Facebook’s biggest since its 2014 acquisition of WhatsApp – and an unusual bet for a company that typically buys into media and online properties. It underscores the potential it sees in India, which, unlike China, is an open market with an exploding smartphone population. Facebook may benefit from a well-connected ally in the country, where Facebook’s WhatsApp is trying to launch a payment service but has run afoul of regulatory scrutiny over fake news and privacy concerns.

“This investment underscores our commitment to India, and our excitement for the dramatic transformation that Jio has spurred in the country,” Facebook said in its statement.

Zuckerberg has long aimed to roll out a digital currency as well as tools that let users make payments and buy and sell products over the social network’s messaging services in India.

With its half-billion internet users, the South Asian country is an alluring market for the world’s largest technology companies, including Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet’s Google. In India, Facebook has about 250 million users, while WhatsApp has more than 400 million.

While India will be a testing ground for WhatsApp payment services, Zuckerberg is also separately looking at the market for his cryptocurrency project called Libra. Zuckerberg has said that payments and commerce are a priority, representing a major business opportunity for the company moving forward.

For Ambani, 63, the deal with the technology giant comes as a boost at a time when his group is battling the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and a slump in demand for crude oil. He has also been seeking to reassure investors that he will honour a pledge to reduce the group’s net debt to zero.

The Indian company spent almost US$50 billion – mostly borrowings – to build Jio Infocomm, the mobile carrier, leading to a net debt of more than US$20 billion as of March 2019. In August of 2019, he told shareholders he planned to sell a stake in Reliance Industries’ oil-and-chemicals division to Saudi Aramco, as part of a road map to cut net debt to zero by March 2021.

The Aramco negotiations dragging on for months, the global health crisis and the crash in oil prices have all raised doubts if that deal will be signed. As a result, shares of the Mumbai-based conglomerate plunged as much as 45 per cent from their December 19 record, before rebounding from their March 23 low.

After building a wireless carrier and a retail business, Ambani has said he plans to rope in “leading global partners” before initial public offerings as he readies an e-commerce business that would rival Amazon and Walmart in the world’s second most populous country.

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This article originally appeared on Bloomberg.