Nigeria’s march to digital economy has received a major boost with the growth of active phone lines recorded in the first half of the year 2020. According to the country’s telecoms regulatory body, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), mobile phone subscribers’ base rose to 203.16 million in August from 198.96 million in July.
Further analysis of the data indicated that the country gained a total of 4.2 million new mobile phone subscriptions during the period under review led by the two major telcos, MTN and Airtel. MTN had 83.08 million mobile phone users in July and recorded 80.35 million users by the end of August. Airtel, which had 54.77 million GSM users in July, gained 1.06 million new ones to record 53.71 million in August while Globacom’s mobile phone subscriber base grew to 52.93 million in August from 52.74 million in July. The NCC data showed that 9mobile’s mobile phone subscribers increased from 12.16 million in July to 12.38 million in August, adding 214,282 mobile phone users to its network.
The report equally showed that MTN added 1.6 million new Internet users to its network in August to reach 63.89 million from 62.29 million in July while Airtel came second in terms of Internet customers as it added 738,462 new subscriptions, which brought its customer base to 39.8 million in August from 39.05 million in July. Globacom added 231,341 new Internet subscriptions in the month under review, which brought the telco’s total Internet customers to 38.49 million from 38.26 million in July.9mobile maintained the fourth position as it gained 32,621 new Internet users in August to record a total of 7.17 million, up from 7.14 million in July.