NCC Stats: Glo Lost 1.7 Million Internet Subscribers in One Month as MTN Emerges Biggest Gainer

Nigerian internet subscribers seem to be massively boycotting poor performing service providers in the data space. At least that’s what the latest industry stats by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) shows. The number of Nigeria’s GSM internet subscribers fell by 712,846 to 122,489,257 in the month of November 2019.

Globacom led the pack of losers as it continued on a losing streak for the 4th straight month. This time it was a shocking loss of about 1.7 million internet subscribers (1,671,766). 9mobile, the other telco that also lost subscribers dropped 210,374.

MTN, once again showed the group why it’s the market leader, gaining the highest share of internet subscribers with 850,285. Airtel followed with 307,070 subscribers while newly added Visafone gained 7,939 subscribers. These gains however, didn’t make up the losses incurred by Glo and 9mobile, hence the drop in internet users.

MTN continues to control the largest market share with 53,014,063 internet subscribers. Airtel controls the second largest share of the market with a total of 33,925,105 subscribers, followed by Glo with 27,323,868 subscribers. 9Mobile continues to decline as it now has a measly 8,135,855 subscribers.

Nevertheless, compared to the same period in 2018, Nigeria’s GSM internet subscribers have experienced an 11.45% YoY increase, adding 14 million to rise from 108,457,051 to 122,489,257.

Of all the telcos, only 9mobile did not increase its subscriber base between November 2018 and November 2019, losing about 2 million subscribers instead.

The NCC industry statistics also revealed that the total number of mobile users increased by over 2 million in November to 182,435,340. Of the total number, market leader, MTN has 36.92% of the share with 67,348,858 users.

Globacom follows with 51,137,642  subscribers (28.00%) and Airtel closely rivals it with 49,650,1551 (27.20%). 9mobile continues to trail the pack with 14,164,411 users (7.8%). Visafone now has 134,274 users on the GSM band which represents 0.07%.

The NCC stats for November also shows that Airtel retains its new crown as the most favorable network for porters as 7,894 users came on board from other telcos. Its predecessor, 9mobile had 5,758 incoming porters, while MTN and Globacom had 1,783 and 476 respectively.

On the other hand, Airtel had almost double the number of outbound porters leaving its network to other telcos. The telco failed to retain 12,446 users who ported from its network – a number far larger than the 2nd telco, Glo who had 2,164. Other telcos, MTN and 9mobile had 1,600 and 1,459 outgoing porters.