Business
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GLOBAL System for Mobile Communications, GSM, operators in Nigeria have sold and connected 12.23 million new subscriber identity modules, SIM, cards this year. According to the latest official data obtained from the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, as of January this year, the total number of connected lines in the country stood at 210.26 million.
This figure increased to 222.69 million by the end of August, with the new activations done by only GSM networks including Globacom, MTN, Airtel and Etisalat. The Code Division Multiple Access, CDMA, and fixed networks have consistently witnessed decline in their subscriber base, as over 99 per cent of active lines in the nation’s telecoms sector is controlled by GSM players. Industry analysts say with the new SIMs, being GSM lines, the consumer taste has, over years, shifted from CDMA and fixed networks to more of mobile services.
According to the NCC data, from 210.46 million connected SIM lines last January, the figures stood at 210.20 million; 211.73 million; 214.66 million; 210.06 million; 213.11 million and 222.44 million in February, March, April, May, June and July respectively. In August, the figure stood at 222.69 million.
Meanwhile, of the total connected lines, active telephone lines in Nigeria’s $35 billion telecommunication industry have hit 152.8 million, according to the NCC data. The data revealed that the new subscriber base is the highest ever recorded in the nation’s telecoms sector. In addition, teledensity has also reached an all-time high of 109 per cent in the country, suggesting the nation is consistently on the path of growth. Telephone density, or teledensity, is the number of telephone connections for every 100 individuals living within an area.
In Nigeria, mobile subscribers control over 99 per cent of the total subscriptions in the country with code division multiple access, CDMA, and fixed networks sharing less than two per cent of the market. Hence, as an alternative, industry experts proposed mobidensity or mobile cellular subscribers per hundred inhabitants.
Teledensity is calculated based on the 140 million populations as documented by the 2006 national Census report in the country, NCC said in its latest report. The latest data of 152.8 million represents the aggregate active subscriber base shared by telecoms players in the networks of the GSM including MTN, Globacom, Airtel and Etisalat and ntel, code division multiple access, CDMA, and fixed networks in the country.
It was learnt that as at October 2015, telecoms companies achieved their highest active subscriber base of 152.12 million in the country. However, following the sanction of N1.04 trillion imposed on MTN for failure to deactivate unregistered SIMs on its network and subsequent regulatory directive to MTN to deactivate over five million unregistered subscribers, among other factors, the monthly subscriber base has crashed.
As at last April, the subscriptions had crashed to 147.56 million, representing a loss of about 4.56 million lines on various mobile networks.
— Nov 3, 2016 @ 17:35 GMT
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