Summary:
India’s telecom sector added 9.27 million subscribers in March, pushing the total base beyond 1.33 billion, with Bharti Airtel leading overall growth, according to TRAI. Mobile SIMs continued to dominate, while broadband subscriptions also saw steady gains. Airtel recorded the highest additions in mobile users, followed by Reliance Jio, which retained the largest market share. Vodafone Idea showed slight recovery, BSNL posted modest gains, and MTNL continued to lose subscribers. Jio also led growth in the wireline and broadband segments, highlighting ongoing expansion across services.
Telecom operators added 9.27 million subscribers in March, taking the total user base to over 1.33 billion, with Bharti Airtel emerging as the top contributor, according to the latest report by sector regulator TRAI.
Retail mobile SIMs accounted for the largest share with 1.141 billion connections, followed by machine-to-machine (M2M) SIMs at 123.8 million, fixed wireless access at 16.6 million, and wireline connections at 48.2 million.
TRAI reported that the overall number of telephone subscribers in India rose from 1,321.31 million at the end of February 2026 to 1,330.58 million by the end of March, registering a monthly growth rate of 0.7 percent.
Bharti Airtel led the increase in retail mobile users, adding 5.094 million subscribers. It also topped the M2M category with 76.9 million connections, followed by Reliance Jio with 23.2 million, Vodafone Idea (Vi) with 19.5 million, and BSNL with 4.07 million.
Reliance Jio ranked second in mobile subscriber additions with 3.227 million new users and maintained a leading market share of 39.21 percent. Vodafone Idea showed marginal recovery by adding over 100,000 subscribers, while BSNL gained 17,095 users and MTNL saw a decline of 9,065 connections.
In the wireline segment, Reliance Jio recorded the highest growth with 188,000 new connections, followed by Tata Teleservices, BSNL, Bharti Airtel, and Vi. MTNL experienced the steepest drop, losing 129,000 wireline users.
Broadband subscriptions also increased, reaching 1.0658 billion in March from 1.059 billion in February, reflecting a monthly growth rate of 0.65 percent. Reliance Jio led the broadband market with 523.4 million subscribers, followed by Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, BSNL, and Atria Convergence.
