The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) which is Nigeria’s telecom sector regulator commissioned research related to the telecommunication industry. The data accumulated from the research revealed that Nigerian telecom companies (voice or data) recorded a subscription rate of over 203 million subscribers.
As of august of 2020, the report confirmed the collection of data provided by mobile network operators such as MTN, Airtel,9mobile, and Glo that the number of subscribers has rapidly jumped by 4.2 million users to 198.9 million users recorded in the previous month that passed.
Telephone density or Teledensity is the parameter that measures the number of active telephone lines within a calculated area.
The report’s analysis showed that all the Nigerian mobile service providers attained roughly 4.2 million new subscribers during the previous month. The new subscribers and the existing subscribers resulted in 198.9 million subscribers during the previous month.
MTN Nigeria is the dominant mobile operator in the telco industry compared to other telco networks. With the statistical results of its latest performance, MTN happens to have its highest number of subscribers. As per report, MTN recorded over 2.7 million new subscribers during when the research was carried out, which sums to the aggregate of 83 million active subscribers.
Meanwhile, Airtel is ranked as the second biggest mobile operator in Nigeria by subscriber size. It got over 1.06 million new subscribers in the previous month, with an aggregate of 54.7 million active subscribers. In comparison, Glo recorded 192,327 new subscribers with an aggregate of 52.9 million active subscribers. 9mobile formerly Etisalat recorded over 214,282 new subscribers, with an aggregate of 12.3 million active subscribers. 9mobile seems to have improved to have attained more subscribers compared to what they achieved in July.
On Internet subscription category, the report says there had been an increase that aggregated up to 149.7 million Nigerian subscribers connected to the mobile internet, fixed wired, and Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) during the previous month.
The telecommunications industry’s service providers achieved an extra number of new subscribers, which resulted in 2.6 million subscribers during the previous month. Studying the reports denotes that there has been a constant increase year on year since the COVID-19 outbreak. The service providers in the telecom industry have insistently inspired the installation of the 4G services as the Nigerian subscribers used more data services as millions were on a compulsory lockdown for months due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
The mobile network providers such as MTN, Glo, 9mobile, and Airtel retained its prime spot as the most preferred Nigerians’ choice as their mobile service connectivity. MTN increased its number of new internet subscribers by 1.6 million users, making MTN the highest service provider both for internet and voice connectivity. While Airtel retains its second spot with 738,462 new data subscribers, Glo added 231,341 new internet subscribers and leaving 9mobile as the fourth on the list with 32,621 new internet subscribers in the previous month.
Based on the research endorsed by the NCC, the study indicates that the voice subscriptions generated less revenues for the telecommunication industry. Data subscription raked in more revenue due to increased demand.
