The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has disclosed that the country’s internet subscribers dropped by 9.6 percent representing 14.5 million in one year.<\/p>\n
This was made known by the commission in a recent update of industry statistics posted on its website.<\/span><\/p>\n According to the data, the total number of active internet subscribers, which hit 154.88 million \u2014 an all-time high \u2014 in November 2020, dropped to 140.34 million at the end of October 2021.<\/span><\/p>\n In December 2020, the federal government directed telecommunications companies to suspend the sales and<\/span>\u00a0reactivation of new SIM cards.<\/span><\/p>\n The policy denied new entrants into the country access to purchase mobile lines while existing users who want to retrieve their lost lines were not allowed access.<\/span><\/p>\n The government had premised the decision on the audit of the subscriber registration database in the country at the height of security challenges \u2013 banditry and kidnapping.<\/span><\/p>\n By the end of the first quarter of 2021, the policy had stiffed the telecoms industry with<\/span>\u00a0single-digit growth.<\/span><\/p>\n Airtel Africa and MTN Nigeria, the two listed telcos, had said the regulatory restrictions impacted their operations with declines in mobile subscriptions and revenue.<\/p>\n The government, however, lifted the ban in April but mandated the use of national identification numbers (NINs) for the issuance of new SIM cards.<\/p>\n Further checks by TheCable showed that MTN Nigeria posted the biggest drop in internet subscribers from 65.76 million in November 2020 to N58.32 million in October 2021, representing a 7.45 million dip.<\/p>\n Internet subscribers of Airtel Nigeria dropped from 41.52 million in November last year to 36.89 million in October 2021 \u2014 shedding 4.6 million subscribers.<\/p>\n Globacom\u2019s internet subscribers declined from 39,91 million to 38.97 million, while 9mobile dropped from 5.90 million to 5,80 million in the same period under review.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has disclosed that the country’s internet subscribers dropped by 9.6 percent representing 14.5 million in one year. This was made known by the commission in a recent update of industry statistics posted on its website. According to the data, the total number of active internet subscribers, which hit 154.88 million […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":112124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_bookmark_settings":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[754,24488,34,3405,3407],"class_list":["post-117936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","tag-banditry","tag-internet-subscribers","tag-kidnapping","tag-ncc","tag-sim-cards"],"yoast_head":"\n