TELECOMS SUBSCRIPTION PICKS UP AFTER FIVE CONSECUTIVE MONTHS OF CONTINUOUS SLIDE, GLOBACOM

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.