Summary:
TRAI data showed that India’s telecom subscriber base grew to 134.31 crore in May 2026, driven mainly by strong customer additions from Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio, which together accounted for nearly 94% of all new subscribers during the month. Wireless and broadband subscriptions also increased, reflecting continued growth in digital connectivity. Jio remained the country’s largest broadband provider, followed by Airtel, while Vodafone Idea, BSNL, and Atria Convergence retained their positions in the broadband market.
India’s telecom subscriber base reached 134.31 crore in May 2026, supported by strong customer additions from Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio, according to data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Thursday.
Bharti Airtel recorded the highest increase, adding 29.8 lakh subscribers during the month. This included 29.26 lakh new mobile users and 53,809 fixed-line customers.
Reliance Jio ranked second, registering a net gain of 22.55 lakh subscribers, comprising 21.54 lakh mobile users and approximately 1.01 lakh fixed-line connections.
Combined, the two private telecom operators contributed 52.36 lakh new subscribers, accounting for nearly 94% of the overall net addition of 55.6 lakh telecom subscribers in May.
According to TRAI’s monthly subscriber report, the total number of telephone subscribers in the country increased from 1,337.54 million at the end of April 2026 to 1,343.10 million by the end of May 2026, representing a monthly growth of 0.42%.
Wireless subscriptions also moved higher, rising from 128.89 crore in April to 129.44 crore in May. This total included 114.58 crore consumer mobile SIMs, 13.11 crore machine-to-machine (M2M) SIMs, and 1.17 crore Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) connections.
Broadband connectivity continued its upward trend as well. Based on data submitted by 1,544 service providers, broadband subscribers increased from 107.34 crore in April to 108 crore in May 2026.
Reliance Jio remained the country’s largest broadband provider with 52.96 crore subscribers, followed by Bharti Airtel with 37.6 crore users. Vodafone Idea (Vi) reported 12.9 crore broadband subscribers, while BSNL had 2.7 crore users and Atria Convergence served approximately 24 lakh broadband customers.
