Reliance Jio Leads March 2025 Subscriber Growth with 2.17 Million Additions

Reliance Jio emerged as the top telecom performer in March 2025, adding 2.17 million new wireless subscribers, according to data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). This accounted for a major 74% share of the total new mobile connections in the country during the month. With this, Jio continues to strengthen its lead in the Indian telecom market, following its addition of 1.76 million users in February and 0.68 million in January.

Second-largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel witnessed a sluggish growth as it added 1.25 million new users in March which was significantly less than 1.59 million February and 1.65 million in January. Meanwhile, Vodafone Idea (Vi) faced a setback with 0.54 million users discontinuing its services in March. This was a sharp increase in customer loss compared to February, when it lost only 20,720 users. In January, Vi had lost 1.33 million subscribers.

State-run telecom operator BSNL registered a positive growth as it added 49,177 new subscribers in March after losing 0.56 million and 0.15 million users in the previous two months. The company has kept its tariffs steady and is now planning to launch its indigenously developed 4G network across India with the installation of 1 lakh towers by June 2025.

Jio and Airtel both increased their market share slightly in March, reaching 40.6% and 33.69% respectively. BSNL’s share declined to 7.87%, while Vi held 17.75%. The total number of mobile phone connections in India rose by 2.94 million, marking a 0.25% monthly increase.

India also saw a rise in 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) users, growing to 6.76 million in March from 6.27 million in February. Reliance Jio served the majority of these users, with 5.57 million or 82.3% under its fold.

Additionally, Mobile Number Portability (MNP) requests surged to 13.54 million, up from 12.06 million in February. The wireline subscriber base also grew by 0.13 million, reaching 37.04 million in total.

Source: Business Standard