MTN Remains Preferred Telco as Nigeria’s Active Phone Lines Rise 2% to 157m

MTN Nigeria continued to establish its dominance as Nigerians’ most preferred telecommunication service, according to the latest numbers from the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC).

The data show that active mobile lines in Nigeria increased by 2 percent month-on-month to 157.6 million in October 2024.

The growth in October ended the monthly drop in mobile line subscriptions that started in March 2024 due to the NIN-SIM linkage exercise imposed by the sector regulator.

Due to this, all unlinked SIM cards were disabled, significantly reducing active mobile lines and leading to telcos losing a considerable number of subscribers.

Recall that MTN alongside some other leading industry players are facing scrutiny by the FCCPC for service delivery violations.

The data also showed that internet connections grew slightly by 1 per cent month-on-month to 134.2 million.

MTN Nigeria retained the largest market share, accounting for about 51 per cent of total subscriptions, relatively unchanged from September’s market share position.

Airtel followed closely with a market share of 35 per cent while Globacom came third with a subscriber market share of 12 percent, while 9Mobile (formerly Etisalat) accounted for a low market share of 2 percent.

In terms of customer additions, MTN Nigeria recorded the most significant increase as it gained about 2.3 million or 2.9 percent customers month-on-month bringing its total customer base of 80.4 million.

Airtel came second with a subscriber addition of about 697,000 users in October, taking its customer base to 54.4 million.

9mobile, once a darling network in Nigeria, suffered the largest attrition, with subscriber losses of -6.7 percent month-on-month or 245,000 users to 3.4 million.

Globacom’s customer base declined by -45,000 lines to 19.1 million during the period under review.

In the latest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the telecommunication sector contributed in real terms to the country 13.94 percent.

However, contributions of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector to real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Q3 2024 declined by 3.43 percent.

It increased from 19.78 percent in the second quarter to 16.35 percent in the third quarter of the year.

The sector has also faced a lot of headwinds which has reduced the telecommunication companies profits.