Nigeria saw the number of internet subscribers in the country decline by 2.4 million to 63.47 million in February compared to 65.87 million in January, according to the Internet Subscriber Data released yesterday by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
The data released by the NCC miscalculates the number of January subscribers at 64.08 million when they actually totalled 65.87 million, meaning the NCC is erroneously suggesting a decline of just over 600,000 when the figures actually state 2.4 million.
All operators in the country saw a fall in their subscriber numbers, with Airtel the biggest loser, seeing subscribers fall to 9.65 million from 11.07 million, a loss of 1.42 million subscribers.
Within the same period, MTN’s subscriber base fell by almost 520,000 subscribers to 32.81 million, Globacom’s fell by over 200,000 to 14.91 million, and Etisalat’s declined by 255,000 to 6.11 million.
The reduction in internet users on the GSM networks, experts believe, is as a result of increasing migration to internet service providers (ISPs) such as Smile Communications.
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