GSM operators lost 1.66m subscribers in March

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) says Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) network operators in Nigeria lost 1.66 million subscribers in March.

According to the subscriber data released on the commission’s website, all GSM operators, excluding Globacom recorded a decline in subscribers.

NCC said the active telecommunications service customers, which was 154,120,484 in February, declined to 152,467,198 in March 2017.

A total of 151,999,197 of the 152,467,198 active numbers were subscribed to the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) network services.

The GSM operators’ active customers decreased by 1,662,350 on the 153,661,547 subscribers recorded in February.

MTN had 60,391,959 users in March, indicating a decrease of 998,738 from the 61,390,697 recorded in February.

Airtel had 34,656,605 subscribers in March, showing a decline of 175,576 users, from the 34,832,181 recorded in February.

Etisalat also recorded a drop in customers by 566,408 in March, giving a customer base of 19,621,806, as against 20,188,214 users in February.

In contrary, data from Globacom showed an increase of 78,372, giving a total of 37,328,827 customers, as against 37,250,455 in February.

Data from the NCC showed that 83.9 million inactive GSM lines, an increase of 2.1 million from the 81.8 million recorded in February.

The Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) operators had 217,566 users in March, the same with February and January.

CDMA service providers, Visafone had 213,106 customers, while Multi-Links had 4,460 in the month under review.

In the Fixed Wired arena, MTN Fixed subscribers increased by 968 users to record 9,532 subscribers as against 8,564 in February, while Glo Fixed had 12,747 users in March, adding just five customers to the 12,742 recorded in February.

According to the report, the two Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) networks had 97,935 active users in March, as their customers increased by 12,064 from their February subscriber base of 89,871.

Smile communication had 39,345 customers, recording an increase of 3,060 users to its February data of 36,285.

Ntel had 58,590 consumers subscribing to its products and services in March, showing an increase of 5,004 users to the February record of 53,586.