Globacom has grown its share of the country’s telecommunications market from 21 percent to 24 percent, having garnered a record 68 percent (5,063,895) of all new GSM lines in the country in the last 12 months.
This was contained in the latest industry report on the performances of the telecoms operators in the last one year on the website of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
According to the figures released by NCC, a total of 7,477,977 new lines were connected between June 2015 and June 2016. Out of these, Globacom recorded 5,063,895 new subscribers, representing 68 percent of the total new additions, while Airtel added 2,414,082 new customers.
Two operators, MTN and Etisalat experienced a misfortune. Etisalat lost 382,336 subscribers, while MTN dropped a total of 4,403,344 subscribers in the last one year.
In effect, MTN which hitherto held a firm grip on the sector with over 45 percent share of the market now holds 39 percent by the end of June with a total of 58.4 million subscribers. This came down from the 62,813,111 subscribers it had by the same time the previous year.
Glo has now significantly reduced the gap between it and MTN, while opening up a substantial gap between it and Airtel. Both Glo and Airtel were at par in terms of market share before then with each having 21 percent.
Airtel grew its subscriber base from 29,564,766 at the middle of last year, to 31,978,848 at the end of June 2016. This still keeps it at 21 percent share of the GSM market. On its part, Etisalat recorded 22,469,896 customers at the end of June, 2016, a reduction from 22,852,232 at the same time last year.