Airtel Leads January Gains as India’s Telecom Base Hits 1.19B

India's telecom sector saw a modest growth in January 2025, with the total number of telephone subscribers reaching 1,192.03 million, up from 1,189.92 million in December 2024 — reflecting a marginal month-on-month increase of 0.18%, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

Bharti Airtel emerged as the top performer in both mobile and wireline segments, adding 1.6 million and 117,000 new users respectively during the month. The report also highlighted significant developments in the 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) space, which was officially reclassified as a wireless service by TRAI. This change notably impacted Reliance Jio’s wireline subscriber numbers, which dropped by over 4.3 million due to the reclassification.

Currently, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel are the only providers of 5G FWA services in the country. Jio leads the segment with 48.44 lakh subscribers, followed by Airtel with 8.72 lakh.

In the broader mobile market, Reliance Jio maintained its dominance with a subscriber base of 465 million as of January 2025, while Airtel followed closely with 386.9 million. Meanwhile, Vodafone Idea (Vi) continued to lose ground, shedding over 1.3 million subscribers during the month. State-run operators BSNL and MTNL also recorded losses of 369,000 and 2,617 subscribers, respectively.

The wireline segment saw BSNL lose nearly 40,000 users, while MTNL dropped 9,904, Quadrant lost 4,741, Vodafone Idea 3,447, and STPL 1,690 customers.

Despite the growing importance of broadband, TRAI did not release updated data for December and January, citing non-compliance by Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel in submitting subscriber data in the prescribed format. Instead, the authority published November 2024 data, showing Reliance Jio as the leader with 46.5 crore wireless and 1.14 crore wired broadband users. Airtel followed with 28 crore wireless and 8.55 crore wireline broadband subscribers.

The machine-to-machine (M2M) segment also witnessed growth, with total cellular M2M connections increasing to 63 million in January, up from 59 million in December. Bharti Airtel led this category with 3.3 crore M2M subscribers, followed by Vi with 1.5 crore, Reliance Jio with 10.9 million, and BSNL with 3.2 million connections.

The latest data underscores Airtel’s strong performance across consumer and enterprise segments, while also reflecting shifting dynamics in the rapidly evolving 5G and broadband landscapes.