Jio leads India’s August mobile subscriber additions, Airtel close behind: TRAI

Mumbai: Reliance Jio continued to lead India's mobile subscriber additions in August, adding 2.40 million users while Bharti Airtel added 2.11 million subscribers, according to data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Monday.

Vodafone Idea (Vi), meanwhile, added 506,139 mobile subscribers during the month, continuing its rebound since the number three telco started increasing the number of subscribers in February 2026.

Overall, India's wireless mobile subscriber base increased by 5.51 million to 1.293 billion in August growing 0.43% month-on-month.

In August, Jio's overall mobile subscriber base rose to 508.43 million from 506.03 million in July, while Airtel's increased to 491.60 million from 489.49 million. Vi's base increased to 199.57 million from 199.06 million, while BSNL's rose to 93.67 million from 93.18 million.

Largest mobile operator

Jio remained India's largest mobile operator with a 39.31% subscriber market share at the end of August, followed by Airtel at 38.01%. Vi held 15.43%, while BSNL accounted for 7.24%, data showed.

India's fixed wireless access (FWA) subscriber base increased 2.68% month-on-month to 19.34 million in August. Jio also dominates the FWA market, with a combined 14.79 million subscribers at the end of August, against Airtel's 4.03 million. This gives Jio roughly 78.6% of India's 18.82 million FWA subscriber base, compared with Airtel's 21.4%.