I do hope that the recession has ended in people’s lives and not just in government data.
The active mobile GSM lines saw a drop of about 4 million subscribers, from 142,654,738 (June 2017) to 138,731,598 (July 2017), in Nigeria.
The Guardian breaks the numbers further.
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Statistics from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) showed that the growth of the four GSM operators contracted collectively by a negative 21.54 per cent.
Individual statistics of the service providers showed that by the end of Q2, MTN recorded -12.08 per cent growth; Globacom saw -0.22 per cent; Airtel had -1.53 per cent, and 9mobile down by -8.15 per cent.
The NCC statistics showed that MTN still controlled the market with 35.8 per cent market share and 49.7 million subscribers. It is followed by Globacom with 37 million subscribers and 26.8 per cent market share. Airtel controls 24 per cent of the market with 34.1 million subscribers. 9mobile has 12.7 market share with 17.6 million after losing between three million and four million customers during the controversies that surrounded its protracted $1.2billion syndicated loans from 13 banks.
At a recent interaction with journalists, in Lagos, NCC’s Executive Commissioner, Stakeholders Management (ECSM), Sunday Dare, confirmed that the Commission was aware of the loss in mobile subscriptions in the country, occasioned by the economic crunch.
This is certainly not what the GSM operators need now. They need growth.