…. as industry’s contribution to GDP rises to 13.55%
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has reported that Nigerian telecommunications industry’s domestic investment rose to 785,771,028,960.36 as at the end of December 2022.
The just published ‘2022 Subscriber/Network Data Annual Report’ by the industry regulator showed that despite the huge investments to enhance their operations, the telecoms operators still contended with a huge operational cost of N2,092,815,085,166 during the year.
According to the Commission, while the operators revenue for the year totalled N3,856,026,156,380.29, out of which they raked in 40,742,900,243.50 from value added services.
The industry regulator stated that during the year under review, the sector attracted approximately $399,905,531.38 in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) compared with $753,044,446.35 recorded in 2021.
A further analysis of the report showed that the telecoms industry contribution to the Nigerian Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased from 12.61% in Q4, 2021 to 13.55% in Q4 2022.
The statistics showed that a total of 34,862 towers and 127,294 base stations were built by the operators nationwide while 289,270.48kms of microwave coverage were deployed in 2022.
In addition, 125 Gateways were recorded in the telecom industry as at December 2022 and fiber optics deployment totalled 96,198 kilometres (terrestrial fiber & submarine cable).
The Commission reported that the telecoms operators deployed 27,868.3km submarine fibre in last year compared to the 27,818.3km they deployed in 2021, representing 0.17% increase year-on-year.
A further analysis of the submarine fibre deployment comprised MTN -17,984km; GLO-9,800km; AIRTEL-14.3km and NTEL-70km, however further analysis of the fibre optics deployment totaled 77,235.5 KM of fibre (On-land and Submarine) as at December, 2022; with 49,367.2km on-land and 27,868.3km on submarine.
The fibre optics deployment data showed that MTN had the largest on-land and submarine deployment of 14,612KM and 17,984KM respectively as at December, 2022.
On Microwave Radio investment, the NCC reported that the mobile network operators deployed a total of 288,947.48KM of Microwave Radio Links as against the 290,625.69KMof Microwave Radio Links reported for 2021 with Airtel Nigeria deploying the longest of 81,352.00km.
This is even as the report showed on the trunks use in the industry that MTN, AIRTEL, GLO and EMTS had a total number of 41,395 Trunks (E1) in use as at December, 2022 indicating a decline from 59,048 Trunks (E1) reported as at
December 2021.
The industry regulator reported that most operators have implemented and evolved IP Capacities to carry volumes of data traffic hence the perceived reduction in E1 which was experienced in 2021.
On the number of gateways in use, the report indicated that MTN, GLO, AIRTEL, SMILE and NTEL had a combined 62 gateways in use as at December, 2022 which comprised MTN 1; GLO -3; AIRTEL – 16, EMTS – 39, SMILE -2 and NTEL -1.
