NCC: Nigeria’s telephony subscriptions rebounds, records additional 6m subscribers

Nigeria’s active telephony subscription recorded an additional 6,206,752 in April, bringing the total subscribers to 201,670,650, according to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC’s) industry statistics released on the website on June 1, 2022.

The NCC’s statistics also revealed that the teledensity increased to 105.65%. Teledensity is defined as the number of active telephone connections per one hundred (100) inhabitants living within an area and is expressed as a percentage figure.

From March 2019, teledensity is calculated based on a population estimate of 190 million, up from 140 million.

In terms of Percentage (%) Market Share by Technology, the NCC report shows that 99.80 per cent of the subscribers are utilizing telecommunications services through the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM).

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Fixed Wired technology and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), account for 0.10%, respectively while the Code-division multiple access (CDMA) technology has no footprint in the market, presently.

The report on NCC’s website shows that subscription reached 81,676,539 in the month under review which is the highest subscription since January 2021.

In terms of broadband penetration, the figure increased to 42.79% in April as against 42.24% recorded in the previous month.

Meanwhile, 832 mobile subscribers ported their numbers to the MTN network in April 2022. The subscribers moved from other mobile networks of Globacom, Airtel, and 9mobile.

This was done through the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) instituted by the telecoms regulator, which allows customers to change their service providers without changing their number.

Airtel also received 354 customers from other networks, while 9mobile welcomed 131 customers through porting. Globacom also saw 112 customers moved to its network from other operators.

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But just as the operators gained some new customers from one another, they also lost to one another through outgoing porting. 9mobile emerged as the biggest loser for the month as 888 subscribers ported out of its network to others, while Airtel recorded 249 outgoing porting.

MNP was flagged off by NCC in April 2013 as a way of giving telecommunications subscribers in the country the freedom to move from one network to another for a better experience without changing their number.

It was designed to reduce subscribers’ complaints about the poor quality of service as they would have the opportunity to change operators at will.

Although subscribers port for different reasons, among which are quality of service, tariff, or availability of service in their area, the MNP has become a barometer by which the telecom operators measure customer satisfaction.