Telecommunications companies expanded the nation’s network by 8.9 million subscribers during the first half of the year.
The 8.9 million customers reportedly included both new users and others whose phone lines had been prohibited in April but had since been unblocked. The new figure was calculated using the June edition’s most recent subscription data, which was made public yesterday by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
Remember that the Federal Government instructed telecom companies to stop allowing outgoing calls from any Subscriber Identification Modules (SIM) cards that are not linked in the nation in April?
The decision was issued by Prof. Isah Pantami, Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, after Nigerians were given until March 31 to link their National Identification Numbers (NIN) to their SIM cards. This deadline had been postponed approximately eight times. The FG’s order resulted in the blocking of around 75 million telephone lines.
The telecoms devised ways to get the impacted consumers back, but they were aware that every blocked line would result in a revenue loss. A free N20,000 airtime bonus was offered to impacted consumers by Airtel, Globacom, and MTN in exchange for linking their SIM cards to the NIN database.
One of the operators stated, “Once subscribers link their NIN to their SIMS, they would earn a N20,000 incentive, which can be used to talk, browse, and text on the network.
According to the most recent data, teledensity increased from 103.4 percent in January to 108.15 percent by the end of June. The ratio of telephone connections to residents per 100 is known as telephone density or teledensity. It varies greatly across different countries as well as between urban and rural areas within a single nation. The area’s per capita GDP and telephone density are significantly correlated.
A total of 197.5 million subscribers were registered in the nation in January, followed by 198.1 million in February, 199.6 million in March, 201.7 million in April, 14.6 million in May, and 206.4 million in June. By the middle of the year, the telephone density in the nation had risen from 103.4 to 108.1 percent in just six months.
Thus study of the data revealed that operators of broadband services concluded the first half of the year with 5.2 million customers as subscriptions increased from 79.4 million in January to 84.6 million by June, further increasing the penetration of the nation to 44.3%.
By June, 151 million people were online, up from 143.5 million in January. More specifically, MTN added 4.2 million new data users. Glo attracted 332,083 subscribers, increasing from 39.5 million in January to 39.9 million in June. MTN had 59.6 million customers in January and increased to 63.4 million by June.
3.4 million more people used data according to Airtel. From 38.3 million viewers in January to 41.7 million in June, the network increased. In the first half of the year, 9mobile lost 502,144 users. By June, it had decreased from 5.7 million to 5.23 million.
With 79 million subscribers and a 38.36% market share, MTN largely kept up its dominance in the business. Globacom comes in second with 56.2 million customers and a penetration rate of 27.28 percent, followed by Airtel with 58.1 million consumers. With 12.6 million consumers and a 6.14 percent market share, 9mobile kept its fourth place.
