Globacom’s hold on the number two position in terms of market share is been threatened by India’s Airtel which is inching closer as the market crossed the 117,271,067 active mobile subscriber mark, according to a report.
The Globacom-Airtel Nigeria rivalry is one of the critical milestones emanating from a new data released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) which show that MTN still maintains a healthy lead by subscriber numbers with over 51.2 million active lines as at the first quarter of 2013.
According to the Q1 2013 report, the total active connections among players in the telecoms market totaled some 117,271,067 active lines with the GSM sector accounting for 114,172,440 lines compared to 2,703,604 and 395,023 by their CDMA and fixed line/wireless counterparts, respectively.
The report also shows that the GSM segment has 97.36 percent of the overall telecoms market share in Nigeria, leaving CDMAs and fixed line/wireless networks to share 2.31 percent and 0.34 percent, respectively. Besides, the overall telecoms market recorded a Q4 2012-Q1 2013 growth of 3.60 percent compared to 5.43 percent in the preceding quarter, which according to TechnologyTimes confirms the growing industry slowdown and tougher operating environment faced by telecoms companies late last year and into the beginning of 2013. The period witnessed stern regulatory measures ranging from promo bans, quality of service sanctions, among other measures, which took its toll on operators’ ability to garner subscribers.
