Active subscribers increase by 43,807 in March

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) says there is an addition of 43,807 active subscribers on the telecommunication networks in March 2019.

The telecommunications regulator disclosed this in its Monthly Subscriber/Operator Data made available on its website on Saturday.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the active subscribers on the telecommunications networks increased from 173,670,035 in February to 173,713,842 in March.

According to the data, 173,432,863 of the 173,713,863 active users subscribe to the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) network services.

The GSM operators’ active customers’ figure increased by 156,335 in March, after the 173,276,528 subscribers recorded in February 2019.

The report stated that out of the GSM operators, MTN had 65,034,615 users in March, showing a decrease of 531,283 from the 66,565,878 it recorded in February 2019.

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Globacom’s figure increased in March by 199,186 with 46,203,703 customers, as against 46,004,517 in February.

Airtel had 45,238,335 subscribers in the month under review, which showed an increase of 262,803 users, from the 44,975,532 recorded in February.

9mobile recorded 16,838,403 customers in March, having an increase of 107,822 subscribers, against 16,730,581 in February.

Visafone, which just migrated from the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) to the GSM network had 117,807 subscribers in the month of March.

The Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) operators recorded 4,460 subscribers in the month under review, indicating a decrease of 119,087 from 123,547 users in February 2019.

The only surviving CDMA operators, Multi-Links had 4,460 in the month under review, same with the record of February 2019.

The monthly subscriber/operator data showed that the Fixed Wireless network (landline) consumers remained at 26,865 in March.

One of the two landline networks, Visafone had 26,437 subscribers, while Multi-Links maintained its record of 428 customers in the month under review.

It also revealed that the Fixed Wired operators (landline) subscriber base decreased by 641; reducing to 107,154 users in March, as against 107,795 recorded in February 2019.

In the Fixed Wired arena, MTN Fixed moved from 5,459 users in February 2019 to 5,449 users in March, thereby decreasing by 10 customers.

Glo Fixed had 2,789 users in March, decreasing by 95 customers from the February record of 2,884.

IpNX network moved from 2,233 subscriber base in February 2019 to 2,221 in March, hence, its customers decreased by 12.

It said that 21st Century Network had 96,695 customers in March, recording a decrease of 524 users from its February record of 97,219 subscribers.

The report also showed that the two Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) networks had 142,500 active users in March, as their customers increased by 7,200 from their February 2019 subscriber base of 135,300.

Of the VOIP networks, Smile Communication had 137,247 customers, giving an increase of 7,779 users to its February result of 129,468.

Ntel had 5,253 consumers subscribing to its products and services in March, showing a decrease of 579 users from the February 2019 record of 5,832.

The regulatory body said that Section 89, Subsection 3(c) of the Nigerian Communications Act, 2003 mandated it to monitor and report the state of the telecommunications industry.

“The commission is mandated to provide statistical analyses and identify industry trends with regard to: services, tariffs, operators, technology, subscribers, issues of competition and dominance.

“This is with a view to identifying areas where regulatory intervention will be needed.

“The commission regularly conducts studies, surveys and produces reports on the telecommunications industry.

“Therefore, telecommunications operators are obligated, under the terms of their licenses, to provide NCC with such data on a regular basis for analytical review and publishing,” NCC said. (NAN)