NCC: Telecos lost over three million active subscribers in December

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) says telecommunications operators in the country lost a total of 3.3 million active subscribers in December. 

In December 2020, NCC, the regulatory agency, had directed telecommunications companies in the country to suspend the sales and reactivation of new SIM cards.

NCC said it was embarking on an audit of the subscriber registration database.

The number of active subscribers for the month of December stood at 204.22 million from 207.53 million in November.

A further breakdown of subscriber statistics showed that Airtel lost the highest number of subscribers in December, dropping by 1.58 million subscribers from 57.23 million subscribers in November to 55.64 million customers. Airtel is the country’s second largest operator with 27.25 per cent of market share.

MTN lost 1.26 million subscribers in December, dropping to 80.76 million mobile phone users from 82.02 million consumers in November.

MTN, however, remained Nigeria’s largest mobile network operator with 39.55 per cent market share.

Globacom lost 249,194 subscribers in December, recording a total of 54.84 million subscribers as against 55.08 million GSM users in November. Globacom remained on the third spot with 26.85 per cent of the market share.

While 9mobile, which had 13.18 million users in November, lost 205,910 subscribers in December with a total of 12.98 million users. 9mobile remained the fourth operator with 6.36 per cent market share.