MUMBAI: Dialling up its digital growth, India’s telecom sector added 3.24 million new telephone subscribers in May 2025, pushing the country’s total subscriber base to a staggering 1.207 billion. While urban India remained saturated with 131.76 per cent tele-density, rural areas rang in gains too, growing 0.14 per cent month-on-month to hit 537.39 million subscribers.

The data, released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), also showed a strong wireline comeback with 1.25 million new connections pushing wireline growth to 3.34 per cent, led by aggressive additions from Jio and Airtel.

India’s broadband base surged 3.37 per cent to reach 974.87 million subscribers, thanks largely to mobile broadband (up 2.92 per cent) and a 60 per cent spike in fixed wireless (5G FWA, Wi-Fi, satellite) subscriptions. However, 5G FWA itself dipped slightly from 7.50 million to 7.40 million users, indicating early volatility in the still-nascent category.

Jio led the broadband brigade with 494.47 million subscribers, followed by Airtel (302.15 million) and Vodafone Idea (126.68 million), together accounting for a whopping 98.47 per cent of the market.

Overall wireless subscriptions grew modestly by 0.17 per cent to 1.168 billion, with rural India contributing 0.38 million new users. Urban wireless teledensity climbed to 124.91 per cent, while rural teledensity inched up to 58.90 per cent. Wireline adoption in rural India saw a sharper surge of 10.44 per cent, albeit from a much smaller base.
Who's Winning the Race?

.  Reliance Jio: 494.47 million broadband subs, 40.92 per cent mobile market share.

.  Bharti Airtel: 302.15 million broadband subs, 33.61 per cent mobile market share.

. Vodafone Idea: 126.68 million broadband subs, 17.61 per cent mobile market share.

Jio also led wireline subscriber additions with 1.28 million new connections, while Vodafone Idea continued to see a decline of over 1.35 lakh users in the wireline segment.

Indians are clearly still keen to keep their digits. 14.03 million MNP requests were made in May alone. Uttar Pradesh (East) topped the chart with 115.77 million cumulative porting requests, followed by Maharashtra at 92.72 million.

Out of the total 1.161 billion mobile subscribers, 1.08 billion were active as per VLR (Visitor Location Register) data about 93 per cent. BSNL had the lowest active subscriber rate (63.73 per cent), while Reliance Communications registered a perfect 100 per cent, albeit on a very small base.

With over 85.36per cent teledensity nationwide and close to a billion broadband users, India’s telecom story continues to evolve rapidly. But the future lies beyond just numbers, rural wireline expansion, M2M growth (now at 73.91 million connections), and the true test of 5G fixed wireless adoption could be the next chapters in this digital saga.

So, whether it's smartphones in metros or landlines in tier-3 towns, India’s telecom tune is still playing and the country’s clearly not hanging up any time soon.

(If you are an Anime fan and love Anime like Demon Slayer, Spy X Family, Hunter X Hunter, Tokyo Revengers, Dan Da Dan and Slime, Buy your favourite Anime merchandise on AnimeOriginals.com.)