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NCC rates telecoms firms in data subscription

By on August 17, 2016

The Nigerian Communications Commission has released details of how the four major operators fared in the data market in the month of June.

From the figures published on the commission’s website, Globacom finished top of the table with 26,628,065 Internet subscribers. This shows an addition of 272,674 new subscribers during the month as the company’s figure for May was 26,355,391.

Globacom’s new addition in June represents 86 per cent of new Internet subscribers recorded by the four major operators during the month being considered. The total for all the four operators was 318, 008.

Airtel finished second with 45,334 new Internet users in the month, moving from 17,280,089 in May to 17,325,423 subscribers in June.

However, the other two operators, MTN and Etisalat, lost Internet subscribers in June. MTN had 134,609 users of the net leaving its network. It thus went down from 33,108,786 data subscribers in May to 32,974,177 in June.

Etisalat was the heavier loser as it recorded 15,508,024 data users in May and 15,253,513 at the end of June. This indicated a loss of 254,511 Internet subscribers in one month.

The new data shows that Globacom made a huge appreciation from the 49,124 new subscribers it gained between April and May to the June figure of 272,674.

Meanwhile, Globacom has recorded 68 per cent of all additional Global System for Mobile communication lines in the country in the last 12 months.

Newly released figures on the telecommunications industry for June 2015 to June 2016 showed that GSM operators added 7,477,977 new lines during the period. Of this figure, Globacom alone amassed 5,063,895 subscribers, representing 68 per cent.

With the additional figure, Globacom’s subscriber base rose to 36.3 per cent at the end of June this year. This saw its market share increasing significantly from 21 per cent to 24 per cent.

In June 2016, for instance, while the industry gained 318, 008 new Internet subscribers, Globacom alone had 272,674 of the new customers.

This meant that about 86 per cent of the new Internet subscribers in June chose Glo.

The latest report by the Nigerian Communications Commission showed that Airtel came second to Glo as it added 2,414,082 new customers in the last one year ending in June.

Airtel, whose subscriber base stood at 29,564,766 at the middle of last year, had 31,978,848 customers at the end of June 2016. This still keeps its share of the GSM market at 21 per cent.

Conversely, both MTN and Etisalat witnessed losses in their subscriber figures. While Etisalat lost 382,336 customers, MTN’s subscriber base went down by 4, 403,344 in the last one year.

Further analysis of the report showed that MTN, which once had over 45 per cent share of the market, had this reduced to 39 per cent at the end of June with 58.4 million subscribers. Glo had 31,256,677 customers by June 2015, whereas MTN had 62,813,111.

In effect, while Glo has continued to reduce the gap between it and MTN, it has created a substantial gap between it and Airtel. Glo and Airtel each had 21 per cent market share only three months ago.

For Etisalat, its market share was 15 per cent as it had 22,469,896 customers at the end of June 2016, down from 22,852,232 at the same time last year.

“Globacom’s lead in the voice segment of the industry complements its status as a clear leader in the data market where it has for the last one year remained tops in new Internet subscriber acquisition,” the company said in a statement to our correspondent on Monday.

 

[Punch]