By Adedapo Adesanya
MTN Nigeria emerged as the telecommunications company with the highest Internet subscriber, according to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in its November 2019 report.
The report showed that MTN Nigeria gained 850,285 subscribers in the month of November, increasing the number of internet subscribers on its network to 53.01 million from 52.16 million recorded in October 2019.
One of its competitors like Airtel gained 307,070 subscribers, compared to 420,031 in October and 444,598 internet subscribers in September. This means that the company recorded consecutive drops in the number of its subscribers.
On the other hand, Globacom lost about 1.67 million internet subscribers in November, higher than 370,845 and 155,118 internet subscribers lost in October and September respectively. This means the GSM company lost 2.19 million internet subscribers in just 3 months.
Following the same trend, 9mobile lost 210,374 internet subscribers in November 2019, more compared to 122,711 internet subscribers in October and 156,065 recorded in September.
As a result of this, Globacom now has 27.3 million subscribers, while 9mobile has 8.13 million internet subscribers.
This means that between January and November, MTN Nigeria gained the highest share of Internet subscribers with over 7.08 million, closely followed by Airtel 3.46 million, and Visafone, 26,290 subscribers. Glo lost 276,671 subscribers while 9mobile records the highest loss at 1.74 million subscribers.
According to the NCC data, Nigeria gained more than 8.6 million Internet subscribers between January and November increasing by 7.6 percent from 113.9 million in January to 122.5 million in the eleventh month.
With the directive given recently by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Mr Isa Pantami, that telecommunications companies should reduce their data charges, 2020 may see price of cheaper data and the return of more internet subscribers.
Business Post had also reported that the Federal Government plans to invest N265 billion in broadband infrastructure which will help increase nationwide coverage, meaning that there will be more internet subscribers.
Dipo Olowookere