Telecom Stats for January 2019 Reveal Significant Recovery Signs for 9Mobile

Nigerian telecom regulatory body, the NCC, has released industry statistics for the month of January. Not a lot of big movements occurred in January, although 9Mobile made some noticeable progress.

9Mobile, Nigeria’s fourth largest telecom company, has recorded its second consecutive monthly growth for the first time in over two years. Its total subscribers grew from 15.3 million in November 2018, to 15.9 million and 16.4 million in December and January 2019 respectively.

The last time 9Mobile recorded subscriber growth for two months straight was way back in August 2016. Back then it had 22.6 million subscribers. However the company entered a state of crisis after it failed to pay back a billion dollar loan to several Nigerian banks. As a result, the company lost millions of subscribers until November 2018.

But while 9Mobile made noticeable gains, MTN’s subscriber base declined by 467,631. Interestingly, this is MTN’s first subscriber decline since July 2018. Its total number of subscribers now stands at 66.7 million.

Glo and Airtel meanwile recorded some growth. Glo subscribers grew from 45.3 million to 45.6 million while Airtel users grew from 44.2 million to 44.97 million.

Elsewhere, the total number of internet subscribers continues to rise in Nigeria. From 111.6 million in December 2018, the figure now stands at 113.9 million users.

MTN holds 45.9 million internet users, while Airtel has 30.5 million. Glo’s stats dropped though it still controls a considerable 27.6 million active internet users. Meanwhile 9Mobile continues to lose internet subscribers. The telco now has 9.88 million users, compared to the 9.92 it recorded in December.

In the porting section, 9Mobile remains the biggest recipient of incoming ports. The telco scored 2,000 new subscribers via porting. MTN followed with 1,394 incoming ports. Airtel and Glo recorded the least porting activities with 1,072 and 817 new ports respectively.