By Bisi Olaleye
The internet users and data subscribers in Nigeria’s telecommunications networks marginally increased to 92 million in August.
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) made this known in its monthly Internet Subscribers Data made available on its website yesterday.
According to the commission, the overall figure showed an increase of 739,975 subscribers in August over the July figure of over 91 million subscribers.
The statistics showed MTN and Airtel network providers gained new internet subscribers, while Globacom and 9Mobile lost subscribers during the month under review.
The breakdown by NCC showed that Airtel was a big gainer with a new subscribers of 576, 856, increasing the number to 21, 165,124 internet users in August as against 20,588,268 recorded in July.
MTN also had slight increase of 333,847 new internet subscribers, amounting to 31,863,373 in August as against 32, 197,220 in July.
However, Globacom had 26,955,276 customers surfing the net on its network in August, showing a decrease of 43,215 users from the 27,912,061 that surfed the internet on the network in July, it said.
The data showed that 9mobile also had a decrease of 213,943 customers to 11,842,298 subscribers in August down from 12,056,241 users recorded in July.
The Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) networks operators such as Multi-Links and Visafone had a total of 30,309 internet users on their networks in August, maintaining the same record of July.
The total figure shows a decrease of more than 1.5 million when compared with the same period last year.
Recall that Internet users stood at 93,591,174 as at August 2016.
According to NCC, internet usage on the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) and the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) networks increased by 167,821 from the 93,423,355 internet subscribers in July.
The August 2016 data showed that out of the 93,591,174 internet users, 93,524,398 were on the GSM networks, while 66,776 used the CDMA.
The NCC monthly Internet Subscribers Data showed that MTN Nigeria had 32,771,259 customers browsing on its network, having suffered a decrease of 561,236 internet subscribers in August, after it recorded 33,332,495 users in July.
According to the report, Globacom has 26,984,974 customers browsing on the internet in August, showing an increase of 164,098 from its July’s record of 26,820,876.
It also said Airtel Nigeria network recorded a rise of users with 18,519,233 internet users in the month of August, as against 17,910,307 customers in July.
The records further showed that Airtel Nigeria network users increased by 608,926 in the month of August.
The data also showed that Etisalat had 15,248,932 internet users in August as against the 15,274,493 in July, recording a decrease of 25,561 users in the month under review.
It also revealed that the CDMA operators (Multi-Links and Visafone), had a joint total of 66,776 internet users on their networks in August.
The record further showed that the two surviving CDMA networks in the country recorded a decrease of 18,408 internet subscribers in the month under review, from the 85,184 users they recorded in July.
Visafone had 66,772 customers surfing the internet in August, showing a reduction of 18,408 users from its July record of 85,180 while Multi-Links maintained the four internet users it recorded in July.
The report revealed 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.