Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
The number of Nigerian Internet users rose by an addition 2.4 million users in the month of May to 141.2 million across mobile, fixed wired and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) in light of the current COVID-19 health crisis.
This was disclosed in the latest industry statistics released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), which explained that this happened as many had to rely on the internet for several needs, due to the restrictions on movement.
According to data from the telco regulatory body, the mobile networks: MTN, Globacom, Airtel, and 9mobile remained the preferred choice by many Nigerians as the mobile network operators accounted for 99.7 percent of the internet subscriptions.
It said that mobile internet subscriptions as of May stood at 140.8 million, while the remaining 0.3 percent was subscriptions over fixed wired and VoIP, which stood at 396,504.
Giving a breakdown on the new subscribers, MTN Nigeria led as it added 882,458 new internet customers in the month. The telco had a total of 58.9 million internet customers as of May this year.
It was trailed by Airtel Nigeria in second place which added 448,504 new subscriptions in the fifth month, which brought its customer base to 37.3 million.
Globacom, though the third in terms of the number of internet customers, emerged as the biggest gainer for the month as it added 1.3 million new internet subscriptions in the month. This brought the number of the telco’s total internet customers to 37.2 million.
9mobile maintained its fourth position with a further decline in the number of its internet customers. The service lost 204,595 data customers in May, which reduced its total subscription number to 7.3 million.
Meanwhile, the total number of mobile subscriptions (voice) in the country inched closer to 200 million in May. According to NCC’s statistics, subscriptions across the four mobile networks rose to 191.9 million in May.
With that, the country’s teledensity, which measures the number of active telephone connections per 100 inhabitants living within an area, also increased to 100.72 per cent. The teledensity is calculated based on a population estimate of 190 million.
According to the NCC, operators activated 1.5 million new lines in May, which raised the number of active mobile users from 190.4 million recorded in April to 191.9 million in May. The gains of new subscriptions were recorded by the trio of MTN, Globacom, and Airtel, while 9mobile recorded a marginal decline in active subscriptions for the month.
Business Post analysis projects that internet subscription figures will surge in the next few months as data subscription are slowly replacing voice options, which is the major source of revenue for telcos, as preferred communicating medium.
This is evident in the latest earnings from telcos like MTN and Airtel, whose chunk of revenues come from its data subscriptions with voice revenue experiencing comparative declines.
This has even spurred other networks like Globacom to slash their international call rates as alternatives like WhatsApp, Zoom, Facebook can be used for transnational communication.
