Nigeria’s mobile subscription base reached 157.3 million in October 2024, up from 154.6 million the previous month.
This is a promising recovery after a prolonged period of decline, largely attributed to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) audit and the implementation of the National Identification Number (NIN)-SIM linkage exercise.
MTN and Airtel are driving this growth, with MTN, the largest mobile network operator in the country, recording an increase of 2.2 million new subscriptions, bringing its total to 80.3 million active lines.
This growth has enabled MTN’s new 51.09% hold of the market share. Airtel also saw a rise of 697,430 new subscribers, boosting its total to 54.4 million active subscriptions and securing 31.61% of the market share.
The rise in active subscriptions has contributed to an improvement in Nigeria’s teledensity, which increased from 71.46% in September to 72.7% in October, based on an estimated population of 216 million people.
In contrast, Globacom and 9mobile have faced setbacks. Globacom experienced a further decline of 44,635 subscriptions, following the earlier audit and NIN-SIM exercise, leaving the network with 19.1 million active subscriptions and a market share of 12.15%.
9mobile, which has struggled with customer retention over the years, lost 245,263 subscriptions, reducing its active base to just 3.3 million, accounting for only 2.15% of the market.
The NCC’s recent audit, which aimed to address the issue of inactive and improperly registered lines, revealed that one network operator had misclassified 40 million inactive lines as active.
These lines had not generated any revenue for over 90 days, breaching the NCC’s guidelines for active users and distorting the industry’s data.
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