NCC reveals What is Driving Teledensity Growth in Nigeria

Fri, Jun 22, 2018 | By publisher


Business Briefs

The Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, has revealed that the country’s telecoms sector achieved steady teledensity growth in the last nine months to reach 114.66 percent in April this year. The NCC, in a report posted on its website, said the growth was driven by the rise in telecoms subscribers’ number, which reached 160,524,590 across all networks as at April.

The country had experienced a slide in its teledensity between January and July 2017, before picking up in August 2017 and maintained a steady growth up till April 2018, where it reached its highest peak of 114.66 per cent. Teledensity is the number of active telephone connections per one hundred inhabitants living within an area and is expressed as a percentage figure.

Precisely, the report showed that after a slide in teledensity between January and July 2017, from 110.8 percent to 99.39 percent respectively, it picked up again from 99.39 percent in July 2017, to 99.60 percent in August same year.

Furthermore, it increased to 99.93 percent in September and 100.55 percent in October. It grew again to 101.66 percent in November, 103.61 percent in December same year, 105.21 percent in January 2018, 106 percent in February 2018, 106.64 percent in March 2018, until it reached 114.66 percent in April 2018, which was the highest ever since the inception of GSM network rollout in 2001.

According to the NCC’s figures, the over 160 million subscriber number was a clear indication of a steady growth of subscriber base across networks. The report showed the market share of each operator, revealing that MTN still leads the Nigerian telecoms market with a total of 65.2 million active subscribers on its network, with a market share of 41 percent.

It was closely followed by Globacom, with an active subscriber number of 39.5 million, and a market share of 25 percent. Airtel held on to the third position with total number of 39.2 million active subscribers on its network and a market share of 24 percent.

9mobile, the fourth GSM company to roll out its services on October 23, 2008, which is also undergoing some transformational changes in terms of ownership and re-branding, has a total number of 16.1 million active subscribers on its network, with a market share 10 percent. ntel, the fifth GSM company to roll out its services in 2016, after acquiring NITEL and MTel, is still battling to find its feet in the telecoms sector.

Since its rollout, the telecoms company has been faced with funding challenge that is threatening its speed of network rollout and its ability to compete with other GSM operators. For this reason, its data statistics have not been recorded by the NCC to show its level of performance.

– June 22, 2018 @ 13:11 GMT |

Tags: