Glo tops subscriber acquisition drive –NBS

Globacom has re­ceived a thumbs-up from the Na­tional Bureau of Statistics (NBS), which recently credited the network with driving the growth re­corded in Nigeria’s tele­communications sector in the last 365 days.
Figures released by the bureau based on the Ni­gerian Communications Commission’s (NCC’s) 2015 first quarter report in­dicated that Globacom re­corded
the highest number of new subscribers in the country with 1.63 million telephone users joining the network from May, 2014 to May, 2015 bringing its total subscriber figure to 30.03 million.
The monthly growth rate in GSM subscriber figure since May 2014 averaged 0.95 per cent, with Globa­com driving the growth, NBS said, adding that the greatest increase was re­corded in December 2014 at 1.97 per cent and the lowest in July same year at 0.43 per cent.
According to the report, “the growth in subscrib­ers was mainly driven by Globacom, which recorded an average rate of 1.45 per cent over the period, close­ly followed by Etisalat with 1.37 per cent and Airtel with 1.29 per cent, while MTN recorded the lowest average monthly growth in subscribers at 0.44 per cent.”
On its contribution to the economy, the report declared that the telecoms sector in real terms record­ed a growth rate of 5.26 per cent in the opening quarter of this year with a N134 billion boost to economic output.
NBS explained further that annual growth in the sector averaged 46.29 per cent between 2002 and 2014, with the highest rate recorded in 2004 at 153.65 per cent, while the lowest rise of 8.53 per cent was recorded in 2011.
The highest monthly growth rate of the four networks, according to the report, was recorded for Globacom in July 2014 in which the number of sub­scribers increased by 1.63 million or 6.37 per cent, while the lowest rate was recorded for Airtel with a total value of 436,260 or 1.72 per cent in July.
The report pegged the cumulative subscriber base of the mobile telecom­munications industry at 143.05 million as of the end of the first quarter of 2015, that the sector re­corded a significant growth from 2.27 million subscrib­ers in 2002 when the first mobile licence was issued to the present figure of 143.05 million.