Reliance Jio Leads Telecom Growth with Record 5G Expansion

Reliance Jio continues to dominate the Indian telecom scene with an impressive addition of 2.6 million subscribers in April 2025, further fortifying its 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) leadership with an 81.9% market share, as reported by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

The telecom industry experienced a net gain of 1.9 million subscribers during the same period, maintaining a positive trajectory after a challenging phase marked by SIM consolidation following the July 2024 tariff hikes. Jio's subscriber boost outpaced March's 2.2 million and February's 1.8 million increments, with its active user base witnessing a 5.5 million surge, indicative of its 96.6% Visitor Location Register (VLR) ratio in April.

Conversely, Bharti Airtel's new user growth waned, seeing a mere 0.2 million increase in April compared to 1.3 million in March, coupled with a worrying decline of 4.1 million in active subscribers, though it retained the highest VLR ratio of 98.9%. Vodafone Idea continued to struggle, losing 0.6 million subscribers and witnessing a 1.1 million drop in active users. Meanwhile, BSNL reported a loss of 0.2 million subscribers overall and a 1.8 million slump in active users, posting the lowest VLR ratio of 61.4%.

Jio's 5G FWA expansion was further enhanced by adding 0.57 million new subscribers, attributed to the widespread availability of its JioAirFiber service in over 5,900 locations across India. While Bharti Airtel added 0.16 million to this segment, the operator's share held steady at 18.1%. In the Machine-to-Machine (M2M) space, Bharti led with a 53.3% stake, trailed by Vodafone Idea with 23.6% and Jio holding on to 18.2% of the market share.

(With inputs from agencies.)