According to IIFL Securities, Bharti Airtel has captured 70 per cent of its wireless subscriber additions from the machine-to-machine (M2M) segment over the past seven months, significantly outpacing Reliance Jio (Jio), which saw only 30 per cent of its gains from this category.
As per the report, Jio’s total mobile subscriber base, including M2M, grew from 460 million in October 2024 to 475.1 million by May 2025. Airtel’s base rose from 414.5 million to 430.4 million in the same period, while Vodafone Idea Limited (Vi) saw a decline from 210.5 million to 204.4 million.
Specifically, in M2M, Airtel’s subscriber base rose from 29.1 million in October 2024 to 40.1 million by May 2025. Vi’s base grew from 15 million to 16.8 million, while Jio expanded from 9 million to 13.5 million. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited’s (BSNL) M2M base edged up from 3.1 million to 3.4 million.
Overall, the industry’s M2M subscriber count increased from 56.1 million in October 2024 to nearly 74 million in May 2025. Airtel led the segment with a 54.31 per cent market share, followed by Vi at 22.74 per cent, Jio at 18.31 per cent, and BSNL at 4.63 per cent, according to TRAI.
In parallel, IIFL estimated that Jio’s fixed wireless access (FWA) subscriber base may have crossed 7.5 million by June 2025, overtaking US-based T-Mobile, which had 6.85 million subscribers in the March quarter and has been adding around 0.4 million quarterly.
The report also suggested that Jio may have emerged as the world’s leading FWA provider by subscribers at the end of June.
Jio’s combined fibre and FWA subscriber base reached 19.4 million, ahead of Airtel’s 10.8 million. IIFL further noted that fixed broadband usage contributed significantly to data traffic on Jio’s 5G network during the quarter ending March 31, 2025.
