MTN, Airtel Gain As Nigeria’s Mobile Subscriptions Hit 157.3 Million In October

Nigeria’s mobile subscription base increased to 157.3 million in October 2024 from 154.6 million in September, signaling the beginning of recovery after months of decline.[/b]

The growth was driven by two network operators, MTN, and Airtel, that recorded an increase in their subscriber base in the month under review.

This followed an extensive audit conducted by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), and the implementation of the NIN-Sim linkage exercise, which plunged the country’s subscriptions database by 64.3 million lines between March and September.

With the growth in actively connected lines recorded by the operators, the country’s teledensity, which measures the number of active telephone connections per 100 inhabitants living within an area, also rose to 72.7% from 71.46% recorded in September.

According to NCC, the teledensity is calculated based on a population estimate of 216 million.

How the operators fared

The NCC’s statistics show that MTN, which is the largest operator by subscriber number, boosted the total industry database with a 2.2 million increase in its subscriptions. This brought its total active subscriptions to 80.3 million from 78 million it recorded in September 2024.

• With this, MTN now controls 51.09% of Nigeria’s mobile market.

• Airtel, the second-largest operator, also gained 697,430 new subscriptions in October, which pushed its active database to 54.4 million from 53.7 million recorded in the previous month. The telco trails MTN with 31.61% of the market share.

• However, Globacom, which lost over 19 million subscriptions to the last audit and NIN-SIM linkage exercise still recorded a 44,635 decline in subscriptions for October.

• Globacom, in third position, accounts for 12.15% of the market share with 19.1 million total active subscriptions at the end of October.

• Similarly, 9mobile, which has seen a significant decline in its customer base over the years further lost 245,263 subscriptions in October, bringing its database down to 3.3 million, amounting to 2.15% of the market share.

What you should know

Aside from the NIN-SIM linkage exercise which ensured that all SIMs not linked with the users’ NIN were disconnected from the networks, the NCC said it also carried out an audit on the telco’s databases, which led to the huge decline in the country’s subscription number from 219 million in March this year to 154 million in September.

While noting that the audit aimed to eliminate inactive and improperly registered lines, the NCC in the process, said it discovered that one network operator had misclassified approximately 40 million inactive subscribers as active.

These lines had generated no revenue for over 90 days, breaching the NCC’s guidelines for determining active users and distorting industry data.