Between March and May 2021, Airtel topped the list of Nigerian telcos with the highest loss of data subscribers.
Prior to the period under review, Airtel boasted of having an accrued 51.43 million data subscribers, but dropped to 50.03 million as at the end of 2021 Q2, a development that saw the telco lose 2.84 subscribers.
Within the three months, MTN lost a total of 2.64 million data users, as its subscribers dropped from 62,843,182 in February, to 60,202,402.
Globacom lost a total of 2.112 million and Airtel lost 415,905 data subscribers within the same period.
In data released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Politics Nigeria discovered that MTN, Airtel, Glo, and 9mobile lost no less than 8 million data subscribers combined.
The total number of mobile subscribers of the telco giants declined to 140.13 million by the end of May.
This development may, however, not be unconnected to the NIN-SIM ban, which restricted people from purchasing new SIM cards and fixing SIM cards-related issues. Industry experts also attribute the losses to pricing, poor service quality, and the presence of alternative Internet Service Providers (ISP).
