Glo’s subscribers base hits 36.3m, adds five million lines to network

Artiste, Flavour makes appearance in TV series

The subscriber base of GSM operator, Globacom has increased sharply by 5,063,895 in the last one year.

Also, the company’s number of customers, which stood at 31, 256, 677 by June 2015 rose to 36,320,572 at the end of June this year.

The new 5,063,895 customers represented 68 per cent of the 7,477,977 additional GSM lines in the country in the last 12 months.

The latest statistics published on the website of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) showed that Airtel placed second on the table with 2,414,082 new customers or 32 per cent.

However, it was a different story for MTN and Etisalat. While Etisalat lost 382,336 customers, MTN’s subscriber base went down by 4, 403,344 in the last one year.

Details of the NCC report showed that Globacom’s market share has risen from 21% to 24 per cent, while MTN, which once overwhelmingly dominated the sector by over 45% suffered a significant reduction to 39% as it recorded 58.4m subscribers compared to 62,813,111 it had a year ago.

Thus, while Glo has reduced the gap between it and MTN, it has substantially widened the gap with Airtel. Both Glo and Airtel had 21 per cent market share a few months ago, with Glo enjoying a marginal lead then.

Airtel, which had 29, 564, 766 subscribers at the middle of last year, had 31, 978, 848 customers at the end of June 2016. This still keeps it at 21 per cent share of the GSM market.

Fourth operator Etisalat has 15 per cent share with 22, 469, 896 customers at the end of June, 2016, compared to 22,852,232 in June last year.
Globacom has also for the last one and half years been the leader in the data market.

In a related development, the Glo-sponsored TV drama series, Professor Johnbull entered episode 5 with highlife superstar and Glo ambassador, Flavour making a revealing appearance as guest of Professor Johnbull in the programme.

The company said television viewers across the country would have a good time when the programme comes on air today at 8.30pm on NTA network and on NTA International on Channel 251 on DSTV as well as Startimes. A repeat broadcast of the programme comes up on Friday at the same time on the same stations.

As Professor Johnbull encounters Flavour, viewers will have the rare opportunity of seeing his view on music stars, having previously discouraged his engineering graduate son, Churchill from becoming a musician. Will the revered Professor Johnbull change his mind?