Airtel, Jio drive telecom growth as India adds 93 lakh subscribers in March 2026

India’s telecom sector added 92.7 lakh subscribers in March 2026, taking the total base to over 133 crore, according to TRAI. Bharti Airtel led retail mobile additions, while Reliance Jio dominated broadband and wireline growth.

New Delhi: Telecom companies added 92.7 lakh customers to over 133 crore subscribers in March, with Bharti Airtel leading the chart, sector regulator Trai said in its latest report.

The SIM used by retail subscribers dominated the segment with 114.1 crore connections, followed by M2M SIMs, used in machines, with 12.38 crore connections, fixed wireless access 1.66 crore, and wireline connections were 4.82 crore.

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“The number of total telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,321.31 million at the end of February 2026 to 1,330.58 million at the end of March 2026, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 0.7 per cent,” Trai’s monthly subscriber report for March 2026 said.

Airtel led the growth in retail mobile subscriber base, with the net addition of 50.94 lakh customers. The company also led the M2M segment with a total connection base of 7.69 crore, followed by Reliance Jio 2.32 crore connections, Vodafone Idea (Vi) 1.95 crore and BSNL 40.7 lakh.

Reliance Jio followed Bharti Airtel in mobile connections with net addition of 32.27 lakh customers as it continued to dominate the segment with 39.21 per cent share.

Debt-ridden Vi showed improvement in the mobile subscriber segment with a net addition of over 1 lakh connections in March.

BSNL added 17,095 connections, while its sister concern MTNL lost 9,065 mobile connections.

Reliance Jio led the wireline segment with 1.88 lakh new connections in March. It was followed by Tata Teleservices adding 1.17 lakh connections, BSNL 47,881 connections, Bharti Airtel 23,370 and Vi 11,954 connections.

State-owned MTNL was the biggest loser in the segment. It lost 1.29 lakh wireline connections.

The total number of broadband subscribers increased to 106.58 crore at the end of March 2026 from 105.9 crore at the end of February 2026, with a monthly growth rate of 0.65 per cent.

Reliance Jio led the segment with 52.34 crore broadband connections. It was followed by Bharti Airtel with 36.88 crore connections, Vi 12.89 crore, BSNL 2.7 crore and Atria Convergence 24 lakh connections.