Bharti Airtel led in net subscriber additions for the month of January at 1.65 million, according to telecom subscriber data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).
Reliance Jio, India’s largest telecom service provider, saw subscriber additions slow down to 686,143 for the month under consideration, while Vodafone Idea continue to see subscriber churn at a net loss of 1.34 million. In December 2024, Jio had added 3.9 million users, while Vodafone Idea had lost 1.71 million, indicating a slowdown in subscriber bleed, mostly attributed to improving network coverage.
In January, state-owned telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) lost another 369,995 subscribers, after losing 316,599 in December. BSNL, which was benefiting from its low tariffs, added close to 7 million mobile users from July to October period after the private telcos took a price hike in July 2024.
At the end of January 2025, BSNL’s total subscriber base stood at 91.58 million, as compared to 91.72 million at December 2024. Jio’s subscriber base at the end of January was 465.82 million, Airtel’s was 386.96 million, and Vodafone Idea’s was 205.92 million.
Fixed broadband subscribers declined to 35.03 million in January (December: 39.27 million. The regulator clarified that the net decrease of 4.24 million at a month-on-month decline of 10.80% was due to the accounting of 5G FWA subscribers’ numbers now being reported under the wireless category from January 2025.
Overall, the mobile subscriber base rose by 6.35 million to 1.16 billion in January, according to data released by Trai. Growth was led by the urban markets, which saw a 5.17 million subscriber addition, while the rural subscriber base grew by 1.18 million. Trai clarified that part of the acceleration seen in the mobile subscriber data is on the back of 5G FWA accounting under wireless subscribers from January 2025.
Jio’s market share rose marginally to 40.46% from 40.42% in December. Airtel’s subscriber market share rose to 33.61 % in January as compared to 33.49% in December 2024. Despite a slowdown in monthly customer churn, Vodafone Idea continued to cede market share at 17.89% (December: 18.01%). BSNL’s share user base also shrank marginally to 7.95% (December: 7.99%).
According to regulator data, the active subscriber base accounted for 92.51% of the total wireless subscribers. The total active subscriber base rose from 1.06 billion in December to 1.065 billion in January. Among the operators, Airtel’s subscriber base grew by 4.67 million to 386.74 million, whereas Jio’s active base was flat at 445.59 million as of January end.
Vodafone Idea’s active user base was 175.83 million, down by 0.68 million during the month.
Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) subscriber base at January end was 5.72 million. Data for preceding months is not available since the regulator started reporting this metric in January 2025.
During the month, 14.14 million subscribers submitted their requests for Mobile Number Portability (MNP) taking the cumulative MNP requests to 1093.33 million as compared to 1079.19 million at the end of December 2024.