According to the latest industry statistics from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the number of GSM internet subscribers in Nigeria grew by 3,568,205 in the month of April. The stats show that the total number of GSM internet subscribers now stands at 119,506,430 – which indicates a massive growth from the 115,938,225 recorded in March.
Of this figure, leading telco, MTN took the lion’s share gaining 3,474,208. This takes its total number of subscribers from 46,552,185 in March to 50,026,393 in April – sealing its position as the market leader.
The second biggest gainer was Globacom with 191,005 new internet users, increasing its subscription from 28,436,386 in March to 28,627,391 in April. Glo was followed by Airtel with 94,412 new users and 31,337,657 total subscribers. Distraught 9mobile continues to trail behind losing over 201,050 subscribers. Its total number of subscribers now stands at 9,441,343.
New GSM entrants Visafone gained 9570 subscribers in April to have a total of 73,646 subscribers.
Meanwhile, as GSM internet subscribers rose, Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) subscribers took a dunk, loosing 1243 subscribers in April to now stand at 360,868.
The NCC industry statistics for April also revealed that the total number of telecom subscribers took a hit, losing 72,782 users to stand at 173,641,060 in April.
Market leader, MTN’s continued dominance with 37.33% of the subscriber share, translates to 64,732,167 users. Globacom follows with 46,380,756 subscribers (26.75%) and Airtel closely follows with 45,433,300 (26.20%). 9mobile continues to trail the pack with 16,720,146 users (9.64%). Visafone now has 117,434 users on the GSM band and takes 0.07% of the market share.
Although 9Mobile has continued to lose subscribers for 2 years now, it’s still considered the most desirable network for porters from other telecoms. 4,017 users ported to the 4th largest Network Operator in Nigeria. That’s about 1000 higher than the second highest porting receptors, MTN which recorded 3,018 incoming porters.
Other telcos, Airtel and Glo recorded 809 and 697 incoming porters respectively in April. However, all the telcos witnessed outgoing porters too with Airtel leading the pack with 2,792, Globacom with 2,401, 9mobile with 1,808 and MTN 942.
The reports also showed that 3G and 4G broadband adoption in Nigeria is growing at an impressive rate. The number of broadband subscribers (3G and 4G) grew by over 900,000 thousand to stand at 64,332,974 (33.70% penetration) in April.
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