Reliance Jio continued to outpace Bharti Airtel in monthly subscriber additions in April 2025, registering 2.64 million new users, according to telecom subscriber data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).
Bharti Airtel, the country’s second-largest telco, added 170,658 subscribers during the month, registering a slowdown in subscriber additions from 1.25 million in March.
Vodafone Idea’s net customer loss increased to 647,650 in April as compared to the loss of 541,377 subscribers in March. However, the figure was lower than the subscriber loss in January this year (1.34 million).
In April, state-owned telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) lost 155, 000 users, after gaining 49, 177 March.
At the end of April 2025, Jio’s total subscriber base stood at 472.41 million, compared with 469. 76 million at the end of March. Airtel’s subscriber base at the end of April was 389.97 million (March: 389.8 million), Vodafone Idea’s 204.71 million (March: 205.36 million); and BSNL’s 90.9 million (March: 91.06 million).
Both Airtel and Jio continued to add fixed wireless access (FWA) users during the month. The total FWA subscriber rose to 7.5 million (March: 6.77 million) with Jio adding 569, 938 (total base: 6.14 million) and Airtel adding 160, 215 (total base: 1.36 million) to their respective subscriber base. Jio is still the only telecom service provider with rural presence in FWA.
Overall, the mobile subscribers base rose by 2.68 million to 1.166 billion in April, according to data released by Trai. Growth was led the rural markets which saw 1.95 million subscriber addition while urban subscriber base grew by 0.72 million.
Jio’s market share rose marginally to 40.76% from 40.60% in March. Airtel’s subscriber market share declined to 33.65% in April as compared to 33.69% in the month prior. Despite slowdown in monthly customer churn, Vodafone Idea continued to cede market share at 17.66% (March: 17.75%). BSNL’s share of user base also shrunk marginally to 7.84% (March: 7.87%).
According to regulator data, active subscribers base, accounted for 92.56% of the total wireless subscribers (March: 92.85%). The total active subscriber base dipped to 1.072 billion in April as compared to 1.074 billion in March.
Among the operators, Airtel’s active subscribers base declined by 4.1 million to 385.58 million, whereas Jio’s active base was grew by 5.55 million at 456.66 million as of April end.
Vodafone Idea‘s active user base was 174.21 million, down by 1.14 million during the month.
Fixed broadband subscribers grew 0.07% month on month at 41.41 million in April (March: 41.39 million).
During the month, 13.48 million subscribers submitted their requests for Mobile Number Portability (MNP) taking the cumulative MNP requests to 1132.41 million as compared to 1118.94 million at the end of March.