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

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

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