The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has reported that total active subscriptions for mobile services in Nigeria declined by 1% to 223.3 million in April 2023 from the 225.8 million recorded in the preceding month.
The latest industry statistics released by the telecom sector regulatory commission reflected the second consecutive month the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) recorded losses across their networks.
For instance, even when the total active subscriptions across their network totaled 225.8 million in March, the figures showed that the month’s subscription was still lower by 0.4% when compared to the subscriptions in February.
An analysis of the operators’ latest subscription data showed that the huge drop in subscriptions by consumers during the month under review was mainly caused by a 2.8 million subscription loss recorded by MTN.
The drop in the telco’s active subscriptions over the past two months is not unconnected to its deactivating SIMs that have not been linked with the National Identification Number (NIN) in line with industry regulatory requirements.
As expected, in April, the NCC reported that the country’s teledensity, which measures the number of active telephone connections per 100 inhabitants living within an area, also dropped to 117.17% in April from 118.48% in March. In Nigeria, the teledensity is calculated based on a population estimate of 190 million.
The NCC’s latest statistics indicated that MTN, which is the largest operator by subscriber number, recorded a 2.8 million decline in its subscriptions, thereby bringing its total active subscriptions to 88.6 million from the 91.6 million it recorded in March 2023.
However, Glo recorded a 128,017 increase in subscriptions in the month under review, thereby maintaining its position as the second-largest operator by subscriber number. The new activation on the network brought the telco’s total subscriptions to 60.9 million from 60.7 million recorded in the preceding month.
Similarly, Airtel also recorded a marginal increase of 3,285 in its subscriptions database for the month, which brought its total subscriptions to 60.33 million from 60.32 million in March.
This is even as 9mobile recorded the highest gain in April with a database growth of 262,737, which raised its total active subscriptions from 13.1 million in March to 13.4 million in April.
