The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has, in its statistics released recently disclosed that mobile voice subscription across networks moved up slightly from 184.7 million in December 2019 to 185.74 million in January 2020.
The figures also showed that fixed-wire line subscription reached 107,272 in January this year, up from 107,154 in December last year.
NCC also revealed that 21st Century Technologies recorded 96,234 fixed-wire subscribers on its network to maintain the highest number of fixed-wire lines, followed by MTN with 5,996 fixed-wire subscribers on its network, and Glo with 2,955 fixed-wire subscribers on its Glo fixed line.
IPNX, one of the oldest fixed line service providers got the least number of fixed-wire line subscribers of 2,087 as at January 2020.
From the statistics, Visafone and Multilinks recorded no fixed wireless subscriber to their networks since April last year.
While Visafone’s fixed wireless subscription number was 26,437 as at March 2019, Multilinks’ was 428 during the period.
In the area of mobile voice subscription, the NCC statistics showed that MTN maintained the position of the largest mobile network operator with a subscriber number of 70.7 million, followed by Globacom with 51.8 million, Airtel, 49.9 million and 9mobile with 13.2 million subscribers.
Others were Smile Communications with subscriber number of 170,726; 21 Century Technologies, 96,234, and Ntel, 3,595.
The statistics further revealed that MTN maintained the position of the largest telecommunications operator in the country since its rollout in 2001, adding huge number of subscribers on its network on a yearly basis.
The report stated that as at January 2019, MTN recorded voice subscriber number of 66.7 million and 65 million in March. In May, subscriber number dropped again to 64.8 million, but rose to 65.3 million in July; 65.33 million in September; 65.9 million in October; 68.8 million in December and 70.7 million in January 2020.
For Globacom, it was 45.6 million subscribers in January 2019; January; 46.2 in March; 46.5 million in May, 46.7 million in July; 49.2 million in September; 51.2 million in November; 51.7 in December and 51.8 in January 2020.
Airtel, according to the statistics, recorded 44.9 million in January 2019; 45.2 million mobile subscribers in March; 45.6 million in May; 46.8 million in July; 48.9 million in September; 49.6 million in November; 50.19 in December but dropped to 49.99 in January 2020.
For Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which Ntel and Smile are currently operating, Ntel had in January 2019 recorded subscriber number of 6,498, but the figure dropped consecutively in February, March, April, and May, to reach 4,321 subscribers in June 2019, before picking up in July same to 4,556 subscribers and further increased to 4,579 in August but dropped again to 4,562 in September, with a further drop in October, November and December to 4,450, 4,231 and 3,904 respectively and a further dip January 2020 to 3,595.
Smile Communications, which also operates in the VoIP segment, had a total of 170,726 subscribers as at January 2020. In January 2019, it recorded 121,261 subscribers, and in February same year, the figure increased to 129,468, with a further increase in March (137,247), April (144,619), May (153,259), June (161,012) July (167,555) and August (169,227).
However, the figures dropped in September to 162,924; 156,000 in October; 155, 675 in November, before increasing to 162,164 in December and 170,726 in January 2020. Both Smile and Ntel currently have a total of 174,321 subscribers on their VoIP networks.
