India’s Wireless and Wireline Trends Analyzed

Key Points

• Mobile subscribers grew slightly in November 2025.
• Urban areas saw faster mobile growth than rural areas.
• Tele-density decreased slightly overall, with urban gains.
• Fixed Wireless Access subscriptions also increased in November.
• Wireline subscriptions rose, driven mainly by urban users.
• Urban subscribers dominate both mobile and wireline markets.

Mobile Subscribers

In November 2025, India had 1.174 billion people using mobile phones. This was a small increase from October 2025, growing by about 2 million subscribers. Most of this growth happened in cities.

City mobile phone users grew from 639.99 million to 641.83 million. This is a rise of almost 2 million users. Meanwhile, the number of mobile phone users in the countryside only increased by about 1 million, from 531.88 million to 532.06 million.

The rate of growth was faster in cities (0.29%) than in rural areas (0.03%). This suggests growing demand for mobile phones in urban areas.

Tele-Density

Tele-density, which measures how many people have phones relative to the population, went down a little. It went from 83.47% at the end of October to 83.46% at the end of November. This is a small change.

City tele-density increased from 126.50% to 127.19%. This means more people in cities have a phone compared to the total population. However, the tele-density in rural areas decreased from 59.17% to 58.94%.

Total Subscribers

The total number of mobile and fixed wireless subscribers increased to 1.187 billion in November 2025. This is an increase of 10 million subscribers overall, with a growth rate of 0.24%.

Urban subscriptions grew from 647.82 million to 650.22 million, while rural subscriptions rose from 536.80 million to 537.26 million. The growth rates were 0.37% and 0.09% respectively.

Wireline Subscribers

At the end of November 2025, there were 47.05 million people using wireline phones (like landlines). This is an increase of 0.30 million from the previous month.

The overall wireline tele-density increased to 3.31%. Urban wireline tele-density was 8.20%, while rural tele-density was just 0.56%. This shows that almost everyone in cities has a landline, but very few in the countryside do.

The continued evolution of India’s telecom landscape presents significant opportunities for investment and strategic growth.