Active mobile voice subscriptions on the MTN, Airtel, Glo and 9Mobile networks rose from 185,742,016 in January to 196,039,869 in June 2020.
This shows that 10.3 million active network users have been added within six months, according to statistics from the Nigerian Communications Commission on the subscribers under the GSM category.
Airtel and Globacom gained 2.46 million and 818,346 new subscribers between January and June respectively.
Also, MTN added 8.06 million new users to its network in the six months under review.
Only 9mobile lost subscribers amounting to 1.05 million from January to June 2020.
Airtel started the year with 49.99 million active phone users and by June, it had 52.46 million subscribers on its network.
MTN’s subscriber figures increased from 70.69 million network users in January to 78.75 million subscribers in June.
Globacom, which had 51.76 million subscribers in January this year, gained new ones to reach 52.57 million by the end of June 2020.
9mobile had 13.16 million phone users in January but its number of active subscribers dropped to 12.11 million by the end of June this year.
At the end of June, the four mobile network operators maintained their ranking and market share with MTN leading the industry with the highest market share of 40.17 per cent.
Globacom ranked second and had 26.82 per cent market share; Airtel ranked third with 26.76 per cent and 9mobile with 6.18 per cent market share.
The NCC report indicated that the telecom industry gained a total of 14.96 million new users in six months, from January to June.
By the end of June, the industry statistics showed that the telcos’ Internet users had reached 143.32 million from 128.37 million subscribers in January.
MTN, in its half-year financial report, had said despite a change in traffic pattern during the COVID-19 lockdowns, it recorded voice revenue growth of 2.8 percent.
The telecom company said revenue from digital and fintech services rose by 121.8 per cent and 29.6 per cent respectively.
In the first half of the year, MTN said it achieved 6.8 million in net additions to connect over 71.1 million customers to its network and connected 3.8 million new users to the Internet, bringing its active data subscribers to 29 million.
In line with the growing number of subscribers on its network, Airtel Nigeria also in its half-year financial report disclosed 17.1 per cent revenue growth in constant currency.
The company said a slowdown in revenue growth during the quarter was driven by the restriction on movements imposed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which impacted customer usage, particularly in voice.
Voice revenue, according to the company, increased 6.9 percent to $197m, which was supported by a 13.5 percent increase in the customer base and was partially offset by a 4.6 percent drop in voice Average Revenue Per Use
