Mobile Network Operators in Nigeria activated about 2.5m new telephone lines in April, though 1.7m lower than what was activated in March.
According to the latest subscription statistics released by the Nigerian Communications Commission, in April, the country had a total of 138.7m internet users, as against 136m in March.
Further analysis showed that Globacom led with 2.07m new users to reach 35.94m as against 33.87m in March. MTN added 698,593 new users, pushing its customer base to 57.98m from 57.28m in March. Airtel gained 41,791 new subscribers during the lockdown to reach 36.87m from 36.83m in March.
The data indicated that 9mobile continued its losing trend with a loss of 302,125 users down to 7.46m subscribers in April as against 7.76m in March.
Largely, MTN remains the largest operator with 74.6m subscribers and 39 per cent penetration; Globacom is second with 27.2 per cent penetration, and 51.8m users.
Airtel, which at the weekend celebrated 10 years of operation with the brand in Nigeria, has 51.3m users, and controls 26.9 per cent market share. EMTS, operating as 9Mobile, has 12.6m customers with 6.6 per cent penetration.
In a related development, from 2014 to 2019, mobile data prices in Nigeria fell by 75 per cent.
According to a study by Research ICT Africa entitled ‘1GB Basket Statistics,’ the average price of one gigabyte of data dropped from $11.15 mid-2014 to $2.78 at the end of 2019.
