Data war: Airtel overtakes Glo as MTN leads the pack

Nigerian’s largest telecommunication company, hascontinued to dominate the country’s data landscape, gaining over 8 million datasubscribers according to the latest statistics released by NigerianCommunication Commission (NCC) for the period ending December 2019.

While MTN maintained its leadership of the market, Airtelsuccessfully edged out Glo in terms of data subscribers, as the telco added4.06 million subscribers over the indigenous brand.

As at the end of December 2019, the total number of datasubscribers on MTN data network rose to 54.11 million from 45.9 million itrecorded in January. This means the telco added 8.18 million data subscribers.

On the other hand, Airtel also recorded significantgrowth in the number of data subscribers in the year, adding 4.06 million datasubscribers, taking the total number of data subscribers on the Airtel datanetwork to 34.52 million from 30.4 million.

In terms of market share, Airtel continues to trail MTN,as the latter expanded its overall market share in 2019.

At the end of December 2019, MTN’s total data marketshare rose further to 68.8 million subscribers from 67.34 million subscribersrecorded in November. On the other hand, Airtel’s number of subscribers rose to50.18 million from 49.65 million recorded in the previous month. Hence, MTN nowcontrols 37.30 per cent of the market populace, as Airtel takes 27.20 per cent.

Meanwhile, in December 2019, Globacom recorded asignificant rise as 1.61 million internet subscribers were added to thenetwork. The total number of data subscribers on Glo network rose from 27.6million data subscribers in January to 28.9 million subscribers as at December2019.

On the other hand, 9mobile ended the year withoutattracting any data subscriber. According to the NCC data, 9mobile continuesits steady decline, as a total of 1.81 million subscribers dumped the networkfor others. In November alone, 210,374 internet subscribers dumped the GSMcompany, a rise from 122,711 internet subscribers in October and 156,065recorded in September.

In another related development, despite the advent of4G/LTE in the global telecom industry, internet speed has remained slow.

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