.as internet users rise to 152.9m
Active subscriptions for mobile telecommunications services in Nigeria across the networks of MTN, Globacom, Airtel, and 9mobile rose to 207.6 million in October. This was disclosed by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in its latest industry data.
The number of active mobile subscriptions in the preceding month stood at 204.9 million. This showed that the telecommunications operators added a total of 2.7 million new subscriptions in October.
With this, the country’s teledensity, which measures the number of active telephone connections per 100 inhabitants living within an area, also increased to 108.94 per cent. This is calculated based on an estimated 190 million population of the country.
According to the NCC’s report, MTN remained the largest mobile operator by the number of subscriptions in the country. In the month under review, the telco activated 696, 600 new lines, which brought its total active subscriptions to 83.3 million. Airtel as the second-largest operator added 963, 274 new subscriptions in the month. This brought its total subscriptions to 56.2 million. Globacom also activated 824, 812 new lines, bringing its customer base to 55 million.
9mobile, which bounced back from its consistent loss of subscribers in July also sustained its gains as it added 223,889 new subscriptions in the month. This brought its total subscriptions to 12.9 million from 12.7 million it recorded in September.
Meanwhile, the total number of Nigerians connected to the internet across mobile, fixed wired and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) rose to 152.9 million in October from 151.5 million recorded in the preceding month. According to the NCC’s report, the telecommunications operators added 1.4 million new internet customers in the month.
While the data subscriptions had been on a steady increase in the last one year as the telcos aggressively push for the deployment of 4G infrastructure, the current COVID-19 pandemic has forced many Nigerians to depend heavily on the internet for several needs.
According to the NCC’s data, the mobile networks, MTN, Globacom, Airtel and 9mobile remained the preferred choice of connectivity by many Nigerians as the mobile network operators accounted for 99.7 per cent of the internet subscriptions. While mobile internet subscriptions as of October stood at 152.5 million, subscriptions over fixed wired and VoIP stood at 446,294.
The report showed that MTN added 669, 931 new internet customers in the month. The telco, which had the largest subscriber both for voice and internet recorded a total of 65 million internet subscriptions as of October this year. Airtel also came second in terms of internet customers as it added 427,701 new subscriptions, which brought its customer base to 40.7 million.
Globacom added 298,290 new internet subscriptions in the month, which brought the telco’s total internet customers to 39.4 million. 9mobile maintained the fourth position as it gained 22,041 internet subscriptions in the month to record a total of 7.3 million.
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