Telecoms Subscription Picks Up After Five Consecutive Months of Continuous Slide as Globacom Gains Market Share

.MTN, Artel has 39.01%, 26.83% market share .Sales, activation of new SIM cards suspension slowed growth

Emma Okonji

Subscription across telecoms networks such as Globacom, Airtel, 9mobile and MTN, picked up in the months of June and July 2021, after a continuous slide in five consecutive months from January 2021 to May 2021.

According to the latest statistics released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the telecoms subscription picked up slightly from 187.026 million subscriptions in May this year, to 187.611 million subscriptions in June, with a further slight increase in July this year, to reach 187.805 million subscriptions with a teledensity of 98.39 per cent.

The NCC numbers showed that telecoms subscriptions had reached as high as 200.213 million, with a teledensity of 104.89 per cent in January this year, but suddenly experienced a gradual slide from February this year to May, when it dropped to as low as 187.026 million subscriptions in the month of May, with a teledensity of 99.98 per cent.

The subscriptions, the NCC numbers revealed, however, picked up again after May, precisely in June and July to reach 187.611 million subscriptions and 187.805 million subscriptions respectively.

Analysis of the NCC data revealed that Globacom, for instance, added over a million new customers to its subscriber base, with an additional market share of 0.51 per cent in the month of July, 2021.

Globacom, the data showed, increased its market share from 26.77 per cent in June, to 27.28 per cent in July this year, while 9mobile maintained a steady market share of 6.89 per cent, without gaining or losing market share from June to July 2021.

The data showed that Globacom added 1,007,259 new subscribers to make its subscriber base grew from 50,130,540 in June to 51,137,799 at the end of July, making it the second largest telecoms network in Nigeria, after MTN, which has 73,123,732 subscribers, with the largest market share of 39.01 per cent, as at the end of July.

The NCC data shows that MTN is currently leading the Nigerian telecoms market in terms of subscriber number, followed by Globacom, Airtel and 9mobile.

While MTN has over 73 million subscribers on its network, with a market share of 39.01 per cent, as at July this year, Globacom has 51,137,799 subscribers with a market share of 27.28 per cent, as at July this year. Artel has 50,301, 237 subscribers with a market share of 26.83 per cent, as at July this year, while 9mobile has 12,908,092 subscribers with a market share of 6.89 per cent, as at July 2021.

Telecoms analysts and President, National Association of Telecoms Subscribers (NATCOMS), Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo, said the slight increase in subscriber number and market share, was a sign that the telecoms industry would renounce again after the huge drop in telecoms subscriptions between January and May 2021, which he attributed to the suspension of sales and activation of new SIM cards in December last year by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ibrahim Pantami.

“Since the suspension order has been lifted and there has been a continuous extension of the deadlines for the integration of SIM cards with subscribers’ National Identification Number (NIN), I strongly believe that growth in telecoms subscriptions will pick up again, as seen in the months of June and July this year,” Ogunbanjo said.

However, the NCC data showed that internet subscriptions across various technologies like Mobile GSM, Fixed Wired Network and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), dropped from 140.488 million in May to 140.175 million in June, with a further drop to 139.744 million in July 2021.

From the statistics, the active subscribers for internet data services on each of the licensed service providers utilising the different technologies, such as Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), revealed that mobile internet data on GSM technology, ranked highest, followed by those on CDMA technology and Fixed Wired technology.