Jio Continues to Lead in Subscriber Growth Over Rivals

In April 2025, Reliance Jio continued its strong growth trajectory by adding 2.64 million new subscribers, increasing its total user base to 472.41 million. This surge solidified Jio's market share at 40.76%, up from 40.60% in March, maintaining its lead in the Indian telecom sector.

Airtel's Subscriber Growth Slows Down

Bharti Airtel, India's second-largest telecom operator, added 170,658 subscribers in April, a significant decrease from the 1.25 million additions in March. This brought Airtel's total subscriber base to 389.97 million, with its market share slightly declining to 33.65% from 33.69% in the previous month.

Vodafone Idea and BSNL Continue to Lose Subscribers

Vodafone Idea (Vi) faced a net loss of 647,650 subscribers in April, increasing from a loss of 541,377 in March. Its total subscriber base decreased to 204.71 million, with market share dropping to 17.66% from 17.75%.

State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) lost 155,000 subscribers in April, reversing the gain of 49,177 subscribers in March. BSNL's total subscriber base stood at 90.9 million, with its market share slightly declining to 7.84% from 7.87%.

Active Subscriber Base Sees Minor Decline

The active subscriber base, representing 92.56% of total wireless subscribers, dipped to 1.072 billion in April from 1.074 billion in March. Airtel's active subscriber base decreased by 4.1 million to 385.58 million, while Jio's active base grew by 5.55 million, reaching 456.66 million.

Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) Subscribers Increase

Both Jio and Airtel continued to expand their Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) services. The total FWA subscriber base rose to 7.5 million in April from 6.77 million in March. Jio added 569,938 FWA users, bringing its total to 6.14 million, while Airtel added 160,215 users, reaching a total of 1.36 million. Notably, Jio remains the only telecom provider with a rural FWA presence.

Overall Mobile Subscriber Base Grows

India's total mobile subscriber base increased by 2.68 million in April, reaching 1.166 billion. This growth was primarily driven by rural markets, which saw an addition of 1.95 million subscribers, while urban areas added 0.72 million subscribers.

Mobile Number Portability (MNP) Requests Rise

In April, 13.48 million subscribers submitted requests for Mobile Number Portability (MNP), bringing the cumulative MNP requests to 1.132 billion, up from 1.119 billion at the end of March.