The Ministry of Communications released telecom subscription figures for July 2026, showing the state of telephone and internet connectivity across India. The data reveals how many people have mobile phones, landlines and broadband access, and how this is distributed between cities and villages.
The Numbers
By the end of July 2026, India had 1,354.28 million telephone subscribers in total. Of these, 1,306.27 million were wireless (mobile) subscribers and 48.01 million had fixed landline connections.
Broadband connections stood at 1,094.48 million when counting mobile devices that also support machine-to-machine connections. Without those machine connections, broadband subscribers numbered 1,005.72 million.
- Urban areas accounted for 796.68 million subscribers, or 58.83 percent of the total
- Rural areas had 557.59 million subscribers, making up 41.17 percent
- During July alone, the country added 6.20 million new telephone subscribers
- Rural areas added 1.58 million subscribers that month, growing at a monthly rate of 0.28 percent
- Urban subscriptions rose by 4.62 million, with a monthly growth rate of 0.58 percent
Tele-density, a measure of how many telephone connections exist per 100 people, was 94.68 percent when including machine connections. Urban tele-density reached 154.12 percent, meaning more connections than people in cities. Rural areas showed 61.05 percent tele-density.
In July, 15.98 million people requested to shift their phone numbers to different service providers through the Mobile Number Portability scheme. The number of active mobile subscribers at peak usage was 1,204.01 million.
What this means for you
This data shows that telephone and internet access continues to grow across India, with both urban and rural areas adding subscribers each month. If you are switching between mobile providers, you now know that millions of Indians use the number portability scheme to keep their existing numbers. The high urban tele-density suggests that in cities, there are more phone connections than residents, indicating widespread multi-device ownership.