The Nigerian Mobile telecoms market encountered a setback in June with key Network Operators losing about 332,338 million active Internet users, says the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
The latest data released by the regulator showed that the number of active Internet users dropped to 122.29 million as of the end of June.
However, this is far below the growth attained by operators in May in which the network providers added 3.11 million new Internet users on mobile devices.
The Internet data showed that Globacom was the highest gainer, having added 196,816 new users in June to reach 29.02 million as against 28.83 million in the previous month.
Further analyses indicated that in the month under review, Airtel gained 42,510 new Internet users, amounting to 31.98 million users as against 31.93 million users in May.
A breakdown of the statistics revealed that 9mobile lost about 310,924 Internet users, reducing its subscription in June to 9.04 million from 9.35 million in May.
Also, MTN lost 178,103 Internet users, shrinking subscription on the network to 52.25 million as against May, when it recorded 52.43 million subscribers.
Meanwhile, the number of mobile phone subscribers increased by 344,307 in June to 173.75 million from 173.41 million in May, according to the NCC report.
The latest report said MTN gained 446,684 users to reach 65.26 million as against 64.81 million in May.
Globacom’s subscriber base increased in June by 123,159 to 46.59 million customers from 46.47 million in May.
Airtel Nigeria had 45.93 million subscribers in the month under review, an increase of 289,604 from 45.64 million in May. 9mobile recorded 16.36 million customers, against 15.97 million in the previous month, down by 398,070 subscribers.