According to a report by India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra), the rise in visitor location register (VLR) subscribers or active users of Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel outweighed the drop in Vodafone Idea Limited’s (Vi) active subscriber base during May 2025.
The report highlighted that state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), which has a debt rating of ‘IND AAA(CE)’/Stable, demonstrated strong performance, with its active subscriber count increasing by 22.5 per cent year-on-year (YoY).
In May, Jio had the largest number of active subscribers relative to its total wireless user base at 462 million (97.25 per cent), followed by Airtel with 386.84 million (99.13 per cent). Vi’s active subscribers decreased to 172.87 million (84.56 per cent), while BSNL recorded the lowest active user ratio with 57.85 million (63.73 per cent).
The VLR for the overall telecom industry rose to 93 per cent in May 2025, an improvement over 90.7 per cent recorded in May 2024.
Additionally, Ind-Ra stated that the drop in active subscribers was not as steep as the decline in total subscribers after the headline tariff hikes initiated by Jio, Airtel, and Vi in July last year, implying that users with low spending potential are leaving the network. BSNL remained an exception by not increasing tariffs and having no plans to do so.
Further, the combined wired and wireless subscriber count rose from 1.204 billion in May 2024 to 1.207 billion in May 2025, even after most telecom operators raised tariffs in July 2024.
Although the wireless user base remained unchanged YoY at 1.168 billion in May 2025, it has been increasing steadily on a monthly basis since December 2024.
