The Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, says the country’s active mobile telephone lines as at August stands at 105.2 million.
The data, which was released by the commission, revealed that mobile network operators in the country added over 1.8 million new lines in August alone, increasing the subscriber base from 103.4 million active telephone lines in July to over 105.2 million at the end of August 2012.
Low price promotions by telecoms companies in the country could be driving the surge in numbers.
Meanwhile the total connected lines in the country, which include fixed wired, Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) and mobile have increased to 141.2 million in the month, according to the NCC.
Data showed that GSM companies such as MTN, Globacom, Airtel and Etisalat attracted most of the new subscriptions between January and August, while CDMA operators such as Visafone, Multi-Links, Starcomms and Zoom Mobile continued to witness month-on-month decline in combined subscriber base.
According to the NCC data, while active mobile subscriptions on the GSM networks increased from 91 million in January to 101.4 million at the end of August; the CDMA operators’ subscriber base shrank from 4.4 million to 3.3 million during the eight-month period.
The GSM active subscriptions, which stood at 91 million in January, 2012, increased to 92 million in February and 94.5 million at the end of March.
The subscriptions continued the upward growth trend, reaching 96.6 million in April and 97.5 million in May.
In June, July and August, the combined active GSM subscriber base increased to 98.3 million; 99.4 million and 101.4 million respectively.
However, the active subscriber base on CDMA networks continued to decline from 4,031,820 lines in February to 3,904,846 in April.
It further plunged to 3,718,153 in May; 3,541,355 in June; and fell in July to 3,452,368 and finally to 3,347,716 at the end of August 2012.
The number of fixed lines, which stood at 688,333 as at January, declined to 488,088 at the end of August 2012.
The former Executive Vice-Chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission, Mr. Ernest Ndukwe, has recently predicted that the country’s mobile subscriber base could hit 105 million in December 2012.
However, the latest NCC data revealed that the target was achieved much earlier, as active subscriptions had crossed the 105 million projections, reaching over 105.2 million at end of August, 2012.
Source: http://www.itwebafrica.com/
