The competition in Nigeria’s Internet market is shaping up to be an interesting one with the only clear winner being regular Internet users. The year 2019 has seen each telecom operator up the ante with aggressive marketing campaigns and data offers with varying outcomes.

According to the monthly industry statistics of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Airtel came out tops in September, gaining the highest share of the market by a wide margin while MTN slightly recovered from its blip in August.

On the other hand, Glo lost Internet subscribers for the first time since February 2019 and 9mobile continued its losing streak.

In the month of September, Airtel gained a total of 444, 598 Internet subscribers, much higher than MTN with 73, 633. In the same period, Glo and 9mobile lost 155, 118 and 156, 065 subscribers, respectively.

For Airtel and MTN, this represents a marked improvement from the month of August where the former gained 350, 134 Internet subscribers, while the latter lost 667, 245. However, it was a poor outing for Glo which did much better in August with 397, 231 subscribers gained.

Despite losing on the data front, Glo gained a whopping 1,945,846, mobile subscribers followed by Airtel with 987, 787. MTN, on the other hand, lost 379, 795 customers, while 9mobile lost 268,159.

Airtel appears to have been best served by its aggressive marketing, and with the recent introduction of new data plans seemingly targeted at heavy data users, its Internet subscriber base will likely continue to grow.

https://techpoint.africa/2019/11/05/airtel-internet-market-ncc/

Cc Lalasticlala , Dragnet , Honsule

When is comes to data
Airtel seems to be at the top for now
their double data is second to none and their 4G is good.

Airtel is best

This is not the type of topics I comment on. But the truth must be told! Airtel is the best!

Lies airtel is scam with their double charging for data and call rates

Airtel is doing great in their aggressive campaign but glo is a disgrace. MTN may be loosing out because they lack ideas to keep their customers on the network. They are still the largest because slightly reliability of network. 9mobile is the worst, they better merge like their counterpart in Ghana (Tigo) before it is too late. It is so unfortunate that their competitors are copying their strategies and offers and are doing it well

Airtel is at the top of the data chain, got a new 4G enabled sim and on my first subscription I was given 4GB free.

Not bad. They're doing well to be honest

Jokes apart, airtel is actually the goto network. Its highly reliable

edoairways:
Airtel is doing great in their aggressive campaign but glo is a disgrace. MTN may be loosing out because they lack ideas to keep their customers on the network. They are still the largest because slightly reliability of network. 9mobile is the worst, they better merge like their counterpart in Ghana (Tigo) before it is too late. It is so unfortunate that their competitors are copying their strategies and offers and are doing it well

you have a major point there. The ads Airtel even does sef can be relatable by Nigerians, and that give Ms them that top of mind position.

If it's airtel, just leave it for them. They are very good at what they do. I love there campaigns and there offers too.

bravesoul247:
you have a major point there. The ads Airtel even does sef can be relatable by Nigerians, and that give Ms them that top of mind position.

Yeah

Airtel low-key just take over the Market... haven't used another network for data In the past 1 yr that isn't Airtel

Well it's not a surprising thing that Airtel came out top, they have very good offers just like Glo too, it's just that they have a better network than glo.

This is really good, I love the competition between these networks, with these the customers get to enjoy better internet services

sureinfo:
Well it's not a surprising thing that Airtel came out top, they have very good offers just like Glo too, it's just that they have a better network than glo.

very true, Glo network can be sometimes frustrating

Nice one @op, I love the fact that the winners are the regular internet users, kudos to airtel too, very much well deserved.

enoch273:
Airtel is at the top of the data chain, got a new 4G enabled sim and on my first subscription I was given 4GB free.

4GB free? , you sure sey I no go go buy new Airtel sim?

Airtel marketers everywhere

I also agree. I stop using Etisalat to browse since 2015, I only use it to call once in a while. 9mobile(formerly Etisalat) data is expensive.

I migrated to MTN, I stop using MTN early last year, after there(MTN) data became expensive.

I migrated to Airtel. Since i migrated to Airtel, I've only been complaining about there(Airtel) poor network which do Bleep up just once in a while, like 1 week in 4 month . There network is fast, but not as fast as that of MTN at where I live and work.

But now, I do sub on both Airtel and MTN, I sub heavily on Airtel while i sub lightly on MTN.

The people I still respect pass nah Glo subscribers. The reason i respect Glo subscribers is because, they must all be people with a lot of patience, cause a person like me will just be smashing my phone on the ground cause of how slow and terrible the network is. The day I use person phone for a week, the person dey use Glo network, I almost cried cause of how slow the network was. I didn't just understand how network fit slow like this, I had to start cursing glo.

sureinfo:
Well it's not a surprising thing that Airtel came out top, they have very good offers just like Glo too, it's just that they have a better network than glo.

Glo have better offers than Airtel, Airtel have a better network than Glo. In fact, dem no dey the same league in terms of network. Airtel is second to MTN.

Can someone please explain this to me!?

BabaOwen:
I also agree. I stop using Etisalat to browse since 2015, I only use it to call once in a while. 9mobile(formerly Etisalat) data is expensive.

I migrated to MTN, I stop using MTN early last year, after there(MTN) data became expensive.

I migrated to Airtel. Since i migrated to Airtel, I've only been complaining about there(Airtel) poor network which do Bleep up just once in a while, like 1 week in 4 month . There network is fast, but not as fast as that of MTN at where I live and work.

But now, I do sub on both Airtel and MTN, I sub heavily on Airtel while i sub lightly on MTN.

The people I still respect pass nah Glo subscribers. The reason i respect Glo subscribers is because, they must all be people with a lot of patience, cause a person like me will just be smashing my phone on the ground cause of how slow and terrible the network is. The day I use person phone for a week, the person dey use Glo network, I almost cried cause of how slow the network was. I didn't just understand how network fit slow like this, I had to start cursing glo.

Very true when I was using a 4g enabled device which didn't have glo band 28 exactly 00:10 in the midnight was still struggling with loading a YouTube video around 10,11,12 I was seriously struggling with network talk less of afternoon then it's completely unusable that's if data will turn on but since I got a band 28 device I was surprised to be using data in the afternoon, like you said mtn is still the fastest but there 4g is really doing well they just need to change there band to a more common one rather than making people spending a fortune looking for smartphones with band 28,9mobile on the other hand is not even trying at all they don't even do commercials any more,I'm expecting then to pull out of the network business and go back to Asia anytime soon

Flytime:

Very true when I was using a 4g enabled device which didn't have glo band 28 exactly 00:10 in the midnight was still struggling with loading a YouTube video around 10,11,12 I was seriously struggling with network talk less of afternoon then it's completely unusable that's if data will turn on but since I got a band 28 device I was surprised to be using data in the afternoon, like you said mtn is still the fastest but there 4g is really doing well they just need to change there band to a more common one rather than making people spending a fortune looking for smartphones with band 28,9mobile on the other hand is not even trying at all they don't even do commercials any more,I'm expecting then to pull out of the network business and go back to Asia anytime soon

9mobile is owned by Nigerians. They are not ready to compete at all.

The best thing for them is to merge with the likes of spectranet, NTEL etc, that's if dem go gree o

Choi...

Dey weee soon start crowding Airtel broadband now...

All these amebo

BabaOwen:
Glo have better offers than Airtel, Airtel have a better network than Glo. In fact, dem no dey the same league in terms of network. Airtel is second to MTN.

Not true. I parted with Glo for Airtel just last month and I regret not doing so early. Airtel beats Glo in anything Internet RN.

BabaOwen:
9mobile is owned by Nigerians. They are not ready to compete at all.

The best thing for them is to merge with the likes of spectranet, NTEL etc, that's if dem go gree o

9 mobile is owned by Nigerians? Does that mean Nigerians can't manage a business effectively?

edoairways:

9 mobile is owned by Nigerians? Does that mean Nigerians can't manage a business effectively?

Glo to is Nigerian owned they just need to improve there internet speed but 9mobile on the other hand was a mistake to buy etialat they just file for bankruptcy

have any of you not yet noticed that airtel has a very fast rate of data zapping? in other words, whatever data you buy is not the real data. i did an experiment, I bought a 750 mb data plan and connected it to my computer using my modern, in less than 2 minutes everything disappeared. tried 9 mobile, lasted for more than a week. our issue is, they are cheating us without our knowledge and no body to fight for us.
also just to be sure, my sister purchased about 5 gig worth or data when connected to a device in less than 15 minutes 3 gig disappeared and guess what no downloading, no any updates, just a plain normal browsing. the data zapping is too much!!!

I have 6 airtel Sims and I can't even afford to use any other network.


Airtel is the real deal.

majorgr:
have any of you not yet noticed that airtel has a very fast rate of data zapping? in other words, whatever data you buy is not the real data. i did an experiment, I bought a 750 mb data plan and connected it to my computer using my modern, in less than 2 minutes everything disappeared. tried 9 mobile, lasted for more than a week. our issue is, they are cheating us without our knowledge and no body to fight for us.
also just to be sure, my sister purchased about 5 gig worth or data when connected to a device in less than 15 minutes 3 gig disappeared and guess what no downloading, no any updates, just a plain normal browsing. the data zapping is too much!!!

My system consumes data a lot, like too very much but I am sure it isn't about airtel.

Try browse with MTN and you will know what it means to zap data.

when service providers compete, customers are the only winners
What i love most about Airtel is the binge plan....