Globacom Maintains Lead in Internet Subscriber Acquisition
Globaom has maintained consistent lead in internet subscriber acquisition since September 2015 till date, according to recent statistics released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the telecoms industry regulator. The statistics showed that Globacom has continued to rule the internet market and has widened the gap between it and the other operators in the country in the area of new data subscriber acquisition.
According to the release, which showed the internet subscriptions of the four major telecoms service providers for the last quarter of 2015, Globacom got the highest number of new internet subscribers, a result that reinforced Globacom’s position as the leader in new data subscriber acquisition.
A breakdown of the NCC data showed that it was only Globacom that recorded an increase in its internet subscriber base in the last quarter of 2015. The network recorded 23,285,454 internet users in October, 24,952,559 in November and 25,082,066 in December, which is an addition of 3.2m new internet subscribers in the quarter.
In an earlier report released on its website last month, NCC had indicated that Globacom gained the highest number of internet users in September of 2015 with over a million new internet users on its network, up from 20,765,379 data users in August to 21,896,229 data users in September. The figure showed an addition of 1,130,850 new internet subscribers which was much more than the total number of new internet users who joined the three other major telecom operators, MTN, Airtel and Etisalat. The three recorded a combined total of 716,450 new internet subscribers in September 2015. The recent internet subscriber acquisition released by NCC, showed that MTN, Airtel and Etisalat all lost data subscribers within the period. MTN which had a total of 41,835,294 internet subscribers at the beginning of October 2015 had 39,924,737 data subscribers at the end of December, a decline of almost 2 million customers.
Similarly, Airtel which began the quarter with 17,730,955 internet customers ended with 16,835,952, dropping about 900,000 subscribers. Etisalat also suffered the same fate with MTN and Airtel as it lost 408,282 internet customers, having begun the quarter with 15,598,070 data and ended it with 15,189,788.
Pleased with its performance in maintaining leadership position in internet subscrip- tion, Globacom said in a statement that growth in its data subscriber base in the last two quarters of 2015, was as a result of its improved internet service delivery and robust tariff plans.
In the past couple of years, Globacom has intensified its quest to be the market leader in the data segment as it significantly upgraded its data network. The Glo data network run on the company’s extensive nationwide optic fibre infrastructure which it linked to its Glo 1 submarine cable that connects West Africa to Europe, America and the rest of the world. The network also offers several attractive and affordable internet packages which have a lot of appeal to data users. These include Free Tomorrow, Bumper Data, Campus Booster, Twin Bash and Weekend and Night packages, the statement further said.
According to Goobacom, ‘Free Tomorrow’ calculates all the value of airtime a subscriber uses in a day for internet services, phone calls and SMS, doubles the value and credits the subscriber’s phone by 12 midnight with the value, while Campus Booster is a special data plan that allows students and others on campus to get up to eight times more data value whenever they use their Glo lines on campuses.