MTN has emerged the most used line by online surfers in the country as the teleco giant gained a tremendous 850,285 internet subscribers in November 2019, data released by the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) has revealed.

closely followed by MTN, in the war to outsmart rivals in the telecommunication industry for a superior data market share and bring more subscribers to its fold in Nigeria, is Airtel who lost out to MTN for the first time in five months.

According to data released by the commission, 1.88 million internet subscribers dumped Glo and 9mobile in November 2019 in favour of MTN and Airtel, two of Nigeria’s largest data sellers.

MTN now has a total of 53.01 million subscribers compared to 52.16 million subscribers in the previous month.

Airtel, which had been the leading gainers’ table in recent months, recorded another drop. Though it continues to witness additional internet subscribers on a month-on-month basis, the Telco has lost its top table rank.

In November 2019, Airtel gained 307,070 subscribers, compared to 420,031 and 444,598 internet subscribers in October and September respectively. In total, active internet subscribers for Airtel rose to 33.92 million.

In terms of market share, Airtel continues to trail MTN as the latter expands its market share. While Airtel has significantly gained subscribers this year, it has remained behind MTN in terms of total internet subscriber base.

At the end of November 2019, MTN’s total market share rose to 67.34 million subscribers from 65.87 million subscribers recorded in October.

On the other hand, Airtel’s number of subscribers rose to 49.65 million from 49.08 million recorded in the previous month.

Pertaining to overall market share, MTN now controls 36.93%, while Airtel controls 27.20%.

Glo suffers monumental drop as 9mobile slips further

In a complete and unconvincing turn of events for Globacom, 1.67 million internet subscribers dumped the network in just one month. The GSM company continues to lose internet subscribers as more people dumped the network for the third month in a row.

Globacom lost about 1.67 million internet subscribers, an increase from 370,845 and 155,118 internet subscribers lost in October and September respectively. This means the GSM company has lost a cumulative 2.19 million internet subscribers in just 3 months.

9mobile also failed to attract new subscribers in the month under review, maintaining its steady decline. In November alone, 210,374 internet subscribers dumped the GSM company, a rise from 122,711 internet subscribers in October and 156,065 recorded in September.

Overall, Globacom now has 27.3 million subscribers, while 9mobile has 8.13 million internet subscribers.

Following the big drop recorded by both Glo and 9mobile, the number of internet subscribers across GSM networks has dropped to 122.4 million from 123.2 million recorded in the previous month.

Year-on-year, internet subscribers rose by 10.85 million since December 31, 2018, representing a growth of just

9.7%. The number of internet subscribers was 73,122,552 in October 2014, 5 years ago.

In terms of market share in percentages, Glo still controls 28% (51.1 million) market share, while 9mobile controls 7.80% (14.1 million) market share.