Significant subscriber gain recorded by Airtel and MTN pushed Nigeria’s active mobile subscriptions to 171.3 million in August a substantial decline recorded in the preceding month.
This is according to the latest industry statistics released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
In July, total active subscriptions across the four mobile networks stood at 169 million as the leading operators recorded losses.
However, Airtel alone gained 1.5 million new subscriptions in the month under review bringing its total active connections to 58 million from 56.5 million it recorded in July.
MTN, which is the largest network operator by subscriber number, also added 499,540 new subscriptions in August. The company’s total subscriptions stood 89.6 million.
Globacom also gained new subscriptions in the month as it added 173,244 new activations in the month, which brought its total connections to 20.9 million from 20.7 million in July.
T2’s rebound halted
T2 (formerly 9mobile), however, saw no growth in the month as its active subscriptions number remained static at 2.7 million.
This is a deviation from its impressive performance in July when it emerged the only operator out of the four MNOs that gained subscribers in a month that saw MTN, Airtel, and Globacom shed weight.
- Nairametrics reported that T2 recorded its first gain of the year in July as it added 290,601 new subscribers in the month, spurred by its recent infrastructure sharing deal with the largest mobile network operator, MTN.
- That gain also came as the first monthly subscriber gain in nearly a year for the telecom operator that had experienced steady decline in its customer base over the years.
- The company, which is striving to make a strong comeback has recently signed multiple agreements with tech vendors including Huawei, to modernize its network.
Market share
With August performance, MTN maintained the leadership of the mobile market in Nigeria with more than half of the market share.
- According to the NCC data, MTN accounted for 52.31% of the market, while Airtel maintained its distant second position with 33.89% market share.
- Globacom’s market share stood at 12.21%, while T2 remained at the bottom of the ladder with 1.59% share of the market.
Meanwhile, with the incfease in actively connected lines recorded by the operators, the country’s teledensity, which measures the number of active telephone connections per 100 inhabitants living within an area, also increased to 79.14% in August from 78.11% recorded in July.
According to NCC, staring from September 2023, Nigeria’s teledensity is calculated based on a population estimate of 216 million.
