The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on Thursday said that internet users on Nigeria’s telecommunications networks have reduced to 92,281,921, as at June 2016. The commission made this known in its monthly Internet Subscriber Data, which was obtained by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
A breakdown of the data showed that internet users on both the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM), and the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) networks reduced by 81,415. It further said that 92,363,336 subscribers surfed the internet in May, but that only 92,281,921 did in June.
The data showed that out of the 92,281,921 internet users in June, 92,181,178 were on the GSM networks, while 100,743 users were on the CDMA. Of the 92,181,178 internet users on the GSM networks in the month under review, the document showed that MTN Nigeria had 32,974,177 customers browsing on its network. It stated that MTN suffered a decrease of 134,609 internet subscribers in June, after it recorded 33,108,786 users in the month of May.
According to the report, Globacom had 26,628,065 customers surfing the net in June, showing an increase of 272,674 from its May’s record of 26,355,391. It also said that Airtel Nigeria network recorded a rise of users with 17,325,423 internet users in the month of June, as against 17,280,089 customers in May.
The records, therefore, showed that Airtel Nigeria network users increased by 45,334 in the month of June. The data also showed that Etisalat had 15,253,513 internet users in June, as against the 15,508,024 in May, recording a decrease of 254,511 users in the month under review. It also revealed that the CDMA operators (Multi-Links and Visafone), had a joint total of 100,743 internet users on their networks in June.
It showed that the only surviving two CDMA networks in the country listed a decrease of 10,303 internet subscribers in the month under review, from the 111,046 users they recorded in May.
Visafone had 100,739 customers surfing the internet in June, showing a reduction of 10,303 users from its May record of 111,042. Multi-Links had 4 internet users in the month of June, same as in May 2016.
The document stressed the need for more Nigerians to embrace the internet, to speed up the country’s progress towards achieving 30 per cent broadband penetration by 2018.
