Latest NCC industry statistics for the month of March 2019, shows that Nigeria now has a total of 115,938,225 GSM internet subscribers. This signifies an increase of over 1 million from 114,725,357 recorded in the previous month of February.
Of this figure, MTN Nigeria continued its dominance with 46,552,185, growing by about 14,000 from its 46,538,633 in February. Airtel also witnessed growth from its 30.8 million in February to 31,243,185.
The highest gainer however, was Globacom whose subscribers grew from 27,486,271 to 28,436,386. 9mobile continued on its downward spiral loosing about 200,000 subscribers from 9,808,935 in February to 9,642,393 in March.
Interestingly, the month also saw Visafone transfer its 64,076 subscribers to the GSM band.
These figures see the GSM providers keep their place as leaders with 99.70%, while the CDMA, Fixed Wireless/wired and VoIP all have 0.10% market share respectively (CDMA – 4, Fixed Wireless/wired – 9,814 and VoIP – 362,111).
The NCC industry statistics for March also revealed that the total number of telecom subscribers witnessed a surge from 173,670,035 to 173,713,842. This is a positive one considering the industry lost over 400,000 subscribers in the month of February.
Teledensity for the month was 91.00. The reason for the reduced value is because it was calculated based on a population estimate of 190 million, up from 140 million that had previously been in use.
The report also shows that market leader, MTN has 37.52% of the subscriber share with 65,034,615 users. Globacom follows with 46,203,703 subscribers (26.66%) and Airtel closely rivals it with 45,238,335 (26.10%). 9mobile continues to trail the pack with 16,838,403 users (9.72%). Visafone now has 117,807 users on the GSM band.
Although still leading the market, MTN lost over 500,000 subscribers in March signifying a drop for the 3rd month straight. This is likely a result of stiff competition and reduced prices users get elsewhere. The consistent loss puts to question how long MTN could maintain its lead.
Despite trailing the pack, 9Mobile still managed to gain the highest number of porting customers. A total of 7,297 users ported to the telco in March. This is way higher than the network with second highest porting activity, MTN which only recorded 1,502 incoming users.
Other telcos like Airtel and Globacom also witnessed 1,444 and 702 users porting to their network respectively.
According to the NCC industry statistics, Airtel lost the most subscribers to porting with 4,515 users transferring to other networks. Globacom lost the second most with 3,176. 9mobile lost 1,583 while MTN lost 1,221.
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