Nigerian telecom sector continues sluggish subscriber growth in November

The Nigerian telecom sector saw another sluggish voice subscriber growth in November, with Airtel and Globacom taking the lead within the period.

Subscriber data on industry released by the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) shows that the telecom sector recorded a total number of 192.8m subscribers in November 2021 compared to 191.6 million in October 2021, giving an additional 1.2 million subscribers within the short period.

According to the statistics, Airtel led the gainers’ table from 51.8m in October 2021 to 52.9m in November, making an increased number of 1.1m added subscribers, followed by Globacom rising from 53.3m in October 2021 to 53.7m in November giving an additional 400 thousand subscribers.

While Airtel and Globacom saw an increased number of subscribers within the period, Nigeria’s largest mobile operator-MTN, and 9mobile recorded no single subscriber growth.

However, despite the little added subscriber growth in the quarter, there was still a big decline in the number of subscribers compared to that of the previous year 2020.

In November 2020, the sector recorded a total of 207.5m subscribers, which implies a big loss of 14.7m subscribers compared to 192.8m recorded in November 2021.

Meanwhile, Mtn Nigeria, which still maintains its lead as the Telco with the highest number of subscribers has also recorded a massive loss of subscribers, which declined from 82m subscribers in November 2020 down to 73.4m in November 2021.

Read also: Airtel, Glo see growth as broadband penetration drags at 39.9%

The Telco following this big loss has seen a huge turndown of 8.6m subscribers within the period of November 2020 to November 2021 when the industry subscriber data was lastly updated.

Airtel has also seen a massive rundown in the number of subscribers compared from November 2020 to November 2021 despite the increased number of subscribers in the last quarter of 2021.

The Telco recorded 57.2 million subscribers in November 2020 and has since then seen a fluctuating decrease down to 52.9 in November 2021, bringing a total subscriber loss of 4.3 million given the year-on-year (YoY) analysis.

Globacom and 9mobile were not exceptional in the list of Telcos that experienced the loss of subscribers as the statistics show that Glo had a rundown of 1.3m from 55m subscribers in November 2020 to 53.7m in November 2021 while 9mobile recorded a decline from 13.1m in 2020 to 12.7m in November 2021 when the statistics were released.

However, the industry statistics have shown that all the Telco’s recorded a decrease in the number of subscribers from the year-on-year (YoY) analysis of 2020 and 2021 respectively.