Nigeria’s telecommunications sector’s active mobile subscriptions in the third quarter this year dropped by 30 percent year-on-year, despite the upward adjustment in the country’s teledensity metrics.
Latest data from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the industry regulatory commission, indicated that as of the end of September 2024, the number of active mobile subscriptions in the country decreased by 153,323,316 to 153.32 million down from 221.34 million recorded at the end of September last year.
When compared to the subscriptions rate in the first quarter of 2024, the 153.32 million in September 2024 represented a decrease of 31% compared to the 219,304,281 subscribers reported by the commission at the end of Q1 2024.
A breakdown of the subscriptions on operators’ profiles showed that MTN Nigeria, the the country’s largest mobile network operator (MNO), maintained its lead with approximately 81.8 million active subscribers in September 2024.
Even then, the telco’s subscription figures reflected a slight decline from the Q1 2024 subscriptions figures.
The report indicated that Airtel Nigeria closely followed the market leader with around 63.36 million subscribers, while Globacom held a market share of approximately 62.19 million subscribers, thereby ranking third in the subscriptions chart for the quarter under review.
In the quarter, 9Mobile recorded the sharpest decline in its subscriptions, which dropped to an estimated 11.7 million active mobile subscribers as of the end of Q3, 2024.
It would be recalled that the NCC recently adjusted its methodology for calculating teledensity, which is a measure of mobile phone penetration, by taking into account Nigeria’s updated population projections from the Nigerian Population Commission (NPC).
According to industry data, the adjustment led to an increase in the baseline teledensity figures.
