Globacom, popularly known as Glo, Nigeria’s third-largest telecommunications operator, has seen its market share fall to an all-time low of 11.9% in April 2025, according to the latest data from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). The operator lost 108,393 subscribers in just one month, dropping from 20.7 million in March to 20.6 million in April.
This decline is the culmination of years of operational, service quality, and governance challenges that now threaten both competition in the sector and the quality of service Nigerian subscribers receive.
Globacom’s current struggles are a stark contrast to its early years. The company pioneered per-second billing and free SIM distribution, once forcing market leaders to rethink their strategies and pricing. However, the last decade has been marked by stagnation, with Glo losing its innovative edge and becoming increasingly reactive in a rapidly evolving market. The recent plunge in market share is particularly dramatic given that, as recently as early 2024, Glo claimed 27% of the market with over 60 million subscribers— numbers that were later revised down after the NCC enforced stricter definitions for active lines, exposing a 69% drop in its true subscriber base.
A key driver of Glo’s decline is its persistent quality-of-service issues. Between January and May 2025, Globacom suffered 45 major network outages—second only to 9mobile’s 63 outages—according to Uptime, an incident monitoring platform on the NCC website, which tracks major network outages among the four telecom operators.
These outages, often caused by fibre cuts, vandalism, and power failures, have led to prolonged service disruptions, especially on the Glo network. One glaring example recorded by Uptime was an outage caused by equipment theft across five states on May 21, 2025. It lasted over eight hours and disrupted data, voice, SMS, and USSD services. In another, a fibre cut in Adamawa and Taraba on May 20 remained unresolved for over four days.
While network outages are common across all operators due to Nigeria’s frail telecom infrastructure, compared to competitors like MTN, which typically resolve outages within 1 to 3 hours, Globacom’s slow incident response has eroded customer trust and satisfaction.
Customer dissatisfaction with Globacom’s services has become increasingly pronounced, with widespread complaints about unreliable connectivity, sluggish internet speeds, and poor customer support. User feedback on different social media platforms consistently reflects growing frustration, prompting many subscribers to abandon the network in favour of more dependable alternatives, even at higher costs. MTN Nigeria, the country’s largest operator, added nearly 3 million new users between January and April 2025, boosting its subscriber base to 90.5 million. These defections are mirrored in porting data: in April alone, 1,233 users left Globacom for other networks—the second-highest figure after 9mobile, which lost 5,042 users. Each prolonged outage not only erodes customer trust but also inflicts financial and reputational damage in a market where digital reliability is non-negotiable.
Globacom’s shrinking market share has profound implications for competition in Nigeria’s telecom sector. With MTN and Airtel now commanding 86% of the market combined, the risk of a duopoly is rising. This concentration could reduce competitive pressure to innovate and keep prices low, ultimately harming consumers. For many Nigerians, especially those in rural and underserved areas where Glo once provided an affordable alternative, the company’s decline means fewer choices and the potential for higher costs and deteriorating service quality.
Moreover, broader infrastructure and security challenges, including rampant fibre cuts, vandalism, and power instability, are testing the sector’s resilience. While all operators face these issues, Globacom’s slower response and underinvestment in infrastructure have left it especially vulnerable.
Underlying Globacom’s operational struggles is a deeper crisis of corporate governance. For years, the company was tightly controlled by founder Mike Adenuga, with little separation between ownership and management. In late 2024, under regulatory pressure, Globacom appointed Ahmad Farroukh—a seasoned telecom executive with stints at MTN and Smile Communications—as its first formal CEO and began constituting a board of directors. However, Farroukh resigned after just one month, reportedly due to clashes with the company’s centralised, founder-driven culture and lack of operational autonomy.
“Globacom’s problem is mostly corporate governance, not because of a lack of subscribers,” said Wole Adetuyi, CEO of Swift Telephone Network. “What it does is to make people think that the telecom business cannot be efficiently done by Nigerian executives, which is not true. There are many successful Nigerian companies in the telecom industry.”
This leadership vacuum has left Globacom rudderless at a time when decisive action is needed. The NCC’s recent audit, which exposed regulatory lapses in SIM registration and data protection, has only intensified scrutiny on Globacom’s governance and compliance practices.
If Globacom is to regain relevance, it must urgently address its governance crisis, invest in infrastructure, and put customer experience at the heart of its strategy. Otherwise, its record-low market share may only be the beginning of a deeper slide—one that could reshape Nigeria’s telecom landscape for years to come.