Communications Commission (NCC) on Thursday showed strong growth in the number of mobile telephone users, with the number of active mobile telephone lines in Nigeria  reaching  105.2 million as at August 2012.

This surpassed projections made by the commission’s former Executive Vice-Chairman, Ernest Ndukwe, who said that the country’s mobile subscriber base would hit 105 million in December 2012.

The report shows that over 1.8 million new lines were added by mobile operators in August; thereby increasing the number of telephone users from 103.4 million in July to 105.2 million at the end of August.

Experts have credited mega promotions ran by the country’s telecommunication companies for the subscriber growth in August.

While the NCC data indicate a robust growth of 141.2 million in August for Global System of Mobile (GSM) operators in the country, Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) operators like Visafone, Multi-Links, and Starcomms continued to witness monthly decline in combined subscriber base.

According to NCC data, although active mobile subscriptions on the GSM networks increased from 91 million in January to 101.4 million at the end of August,  the CDMA operators’ subscriber base reduced from 4.4 million to 3.3 million during the same period.

Industry experts, however, opine that though it was good that the country’s mobile subscriber base has crossed the 105 million mark, it translates to pressure on the country’s mobile network operators to improve existing infrastructure/capacity.