Reliance Jio, India's leading telecom operator, added the most active subscribers in the industry in May 2025. Jio added about 5.5 million users (active ones) in a month, as per TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) report. This was followed by Airtel which added 1.3 million active users in the same month. Reliance Jio's active subscriber market share in the last twelve months grew by 150 bps (1.5%), according to Jefferies, a research firm.
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Vodafone Idea's Woes Continue
A notable thing was that the industry, altogether, added about 7.3 million active users, which is the highest in the last 29 months. The subscriber additions were led by A-Circles and B-Circles. Meanwhile, the metro circles saw a decline. Vodafone Idea continued to lose subscribers for the 18th month.
Vi's capex going up hasn't had any effect on its peformance in the short-term, at least when the performance is concerned with susbcriber addition. Subscribers continue to shift between telcos as higher/elevated MNP requests were reported by TRAI in May 2025. This leads to higher dealer commissions/SG&A expenses for the telcos.
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Jefferies, in a note said, "Jio's continued outperformance vs. Bharti on active subscriber additions augurs well for the sector's overall tariff outlook." The trend of Jio and Airtel adding users and Vi losing them is a very normal scenario for the Indian telecom industry. Vi's loss turns to gains for Jio/Airtel. If this continues, Vi's active user base would likely fall below 150 million in the near future. Vi's capex guidance suggests major improvements in the networks both in terms of capacity and coverage in the next two years. This needs to translate into subscriber gains for the telco to make any difference in the business. For now, the eyes will be on the government to see what measures it will announce to help Vi further with the AGR (adjusted gross revenue) payouts.
