The active subscribers on the telecommunication networks increased by 31,273 in May 2019, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said.
The telecommunications regulator made this known in its Monthly Subscriber/Operator Data made available on its website on Tuesday.
The active subscribers on the telecommunications networks increased from 173,641,060 in April to 173,672,333 in May.
According to the data, 173,405,294 of the 173,672,333 active users subscribed to the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) network services.
The GSM operators’ active customers’ figure increased by 21,491 in May after the 173,383,803 subscribers recorded in April 2019.
The report stated that out of the GSM operators, MTN had 64,812,691 users in May, showing an increase of 80,524 from the 64,732,167 it recorded in April 2019.
Globacom’s figure increased in May by 91,066 with 46,471,822 customers, as against 46,380,756 in April.
Airtel had 45,640,391 subscribers in the month under review, which showed an increase of 207,091 users, from the 45,433,300 recorded in April.
9mobile recorded 16,363,320 customers in May, having a decrease of 356,826 subscribers, against 16,720,146 in April.
Visafone, which just migrated from the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) to the GSM network had 117,070 subscribers in the month of May, showing a decrease of 364 from April record of 117,434.
It also revealed that the Fixed Wired operators (landline) subscriber base increased by 1,214; adding up to 109,247 users in May, as against 108,033 recorded in April 2019.
In the Fixed Wired arena, MTN Fixed moved from 5,373 users in April 2019 to 5,405 users in May, thereby increasing by 32 customers.
Glo Fixed had 3,684 users in May, decreasing by 158 customers from the April record of 3,842.
IpNX network moved from 2,237 subscriber base in April 2019 to 2,292 in May, hence, its customers increased by 55.
It said that 21st Century Network had 97,866 customers in May, recording an increase of 1,285 users from its April record of 96,581 subscribers.
The report also showed that the two Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) networks had 157,792 active users in May, as their customers increased by 6,568 from their April 2019 subscriber base of 149,224.
Of the VOIP networks, Smile Communication had 153,259 customers, giving an increase of 8,640 users to its April result of 144,619.
Ntel had 4,533 consumers subscribing to its products and services in May, showing a decrease of 72 users from the April 2019 record of 4,605.
The regulatory body said that Section 89, Subsection 3(c) of the Nigerian Communications Act, 2003 mandated it to monitor and report the state of the telecommunications industry.
“The commission is mandated to provide statistical analyses and identify industry trends with regard to services, tariffs, operators, technology, subscribers, issues of competition and dominance.
“This is with a view to identifying areas where regulatory intervention will be needed.
“The commission regularly conducts studies, surveys and produces reports on the telecommunications industry.
“Therefore, telecommunications operators are obligated, under the terms of their licenses, to provide NCC with such data on a regular basis for analytical review and publishing,’’ NCC said.