As the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) releases the latest subscriber figures, Vodafone-Idea and state-owned BSNL seem to straddle as their subscriber losses continue to widen. This is amidst Reliance Jio’s and Bharti Airtel’s bullish market growth, yet again in the month ending in April. As per the TRAI’s data, Vi’s subscriber base stood at 204.71 million following a loss of 0.64 million users. 

Going by the latest data, Jio added 2.64 million users in April, closing the month with 472.40 million subscribers, while Airtel’s subscriber base grew by 0.17 million to reach 389.97 million. Apart from the private players, state-run BSNL lost 0.15 million users in April, restricting its subscriber base to 90.9 million. 

Previous Predictions 

While there have been no substantial predictions regarding the growth or loss of BSNL, there have been significant reports suggesting the future performance of the three private telco players. As reported earlier, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, India’s two top telcos, are expected to deliver strong revenue and income growth in the upcoming 2-3 years, riding on user gains through their sustained mobile broadband services. 

As per the estimates by Goldman Sachs, Vodafone Idea (Vi) is set to lose subscribers if it is unable to make meaningful capital investments over the next two to three years. Its ambitious ₹50,000–55,000 crore capex plan hinges on securing a long-pending ₹25,000 crore credit line from banks—a crucial step that has been stalled for months. 

To read the full report, click here. 

Highest VLR Metric

The month of April reported the highest VLR count of 1072.73 million on the peak day. VLR refers to the Visitor Location Register—a temporary database of the subscribers who have roamed into the particular area that it serves. Each base station in the network is served by exactly one VLR; hence, a subscriber cannot be present in more than one VLR at a time.

Overall Tele Density 

India’s overall teledensity rose slightly from 85.04% at the end of March 2025 to 85.19% by April 2025. Urban teledensity edged up from 131.45% to 131.46%, while rural teledensity increased more noticeably from 59.06% to 59.26% during the same period. 

As of April 2025, urban subscribers accounted for 55.42% of the total telephone user base, with rural subscribers making up the remaining 44.58%.

Mobile Number Portability 

In April 2025, a total of 13.48 million Mobile Number Portability (MNP) requests were received across India. Of these, 7.60 million originated from Zone I (Northern and Western India), while 5.88 million came from Zone II (Southern and Eastern India). 

Within Zone I, Uttar Pradesh-East recorded the highest cumulative number of MNP requests to date at 113.81 million, followed by Maharashtra with 91.80 million. In Zone II, Madhya Pradesh led with 89.58 million requests, followed by Karnataka with 74.10 million.