Telecom stocks in focus: Vodafone India shares gain, Bharti Airtel slips post Trai March data

According to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) data, Bharti Airtel's monthly gains were at 12.50 lakh users, while Reliance Jio cemented its lead in the Indian telecom market, adding 21.74 lakh wireless subscribers in March.

As per the data, Jio's addition of 21.74 lakh wireless users during the month pushed up its subscriber count to 46.97 crore.

For Bharti Airtel, the mobile base expanded to 38.98 crore, with the addition of 12.50 lakh users in March.

Trai’s report said, as per the information from 1,206 operators in March 2025, in comparison to 1,189 operators in February 2025, the total broadband subscribers increased from 944.04 million at the end of February 2025 to 944.12 million at the end of March-25 with a monthly growth rate of 0.009%.

"Total wirelessless (mobile + 5G-FWA) subscribers increased from 1,160.33 million at the end of February 2025 to 1,163.76 million at the end of March 2025, thereby registering a monthly growth rate of 0.28%. Total wireless subscriptions in urban areas decreased from 634 million on February 25 to 632.57 million on March-25 and the subscriptions in rural areas increased from 526.33 million to 531.18 million during the same period," Trai said in its monthly subscriber data report.

The urban mobile subscriptions fell 0.26%, while the rural wireless count was up 0.92%.

"Wireline subscribers increased from 36.91 million at the end of February 2025 to 37.04 million at the end of March 2025," the Trai release said, pegging the monthly rate of growth at 0.37%.

The overall wireline tele-density in India remained the same at 2.62% at the end of March 2025.

BSNL, MTNL, and APSFL, the three PSUs access service providers, held 27.87% of the wireline market share as of March 31, 2025.

The regulator’s report also said that as of March 31, 2025, the private access service providers held 92.04% market share of the wireless (mobile) subscribers, whereas BSNL and MTNL, the two PSU access service providers, had a market share of only 7.96%.

Following Trai’s report, shares of Vodafone Idea on Thursday were trading higher. At the time of writing this article, the stock was trading 0.43% up at ₹6.95 apiece on NSE. It had touched an intraday high of ₹7.05 per share.

Bharti Airtel shares were down 0.68% to ₹1,424.40 apiece on the 50-share index.