Globacom has once again demonstrated its data pedigree in Nigeria by recording the largest percentage of data subscribers in relation to the total number of customers on any network in the country. This was revealed in the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) report covering the first three months of year 2017.
Globacom, at the end of the first quarter, recorded a total of 27,021,200 data customers, representing 72 per cent of the total number of subscribers on its network which stood at 37,328,827. With 72 per cent data penetration rate, Glo thus surpassed the industry’s average which stood at 59 per cent.
At the end of the first quarter, a total of 90,003,101 internet users were recorded in the industry against a total of152,216,763 subscribers in the industry. The second position was occupied by Etisalat with 13,008,481 data users out of a total subscriber base of 19,621,806, giving a data penetration rate of 68 per cent, while the third position went to Airtel with 56 per cent internet penetration achieved with 19,423,760 data customers out of the total 34,656,605 subscribers on its network as at March, 2017.
MTN, with 30,519,351 data customers or 51 per cent of its 60,391,959 subscribers, recorded the least penetration of data users on its network. In the last two years, Globacom has remained the number one network for data services in the country. It successfully added half a million customers to its internet subscriber base in the last one year, despite the industry losing a huge number of internet users. Between March, 2016, and March, 2017, the figure of data customers in the industry fell from 92,409,962 to 90,003,101, with MTN and Etisalat recording losses of 2,837,244 and 2,234,375 data customers respectively.
Globacom’s ascendancy to the top of the data market in Nigeria has been attributed to its improved data services which followed the network improvement exercise carried out by the company, in addition to several attractive and user-friendly packages which offer a lot of appeal to data users.