Between January and June this year, the mobile network operators comprising MTN, Airtel, Globacom, and 9mobile have increased their mobile subscriptions by 9 million, according to the latest data from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
The four telecom operators by the end of June 2022 had 151 million internet subscriptions from 141.9 million recorded in December last year.
As of the same period in 2021, the operators had lost 14 million subscriptions. This was as a result of the government’s ban on new SIM registration which took effect from December 2020 to April 2021.
With the huge loss of internet subscriptions in 2021, MTN Nigeria recorded a 55 per cent increase in data revenue for the year as it raked in N516 billion from its internet customers.
In its financial report for the first quarter of 2022, the company also recorded 54 per cent growth in data revenue from N105.6 billion last year to N162.7 billion this year.
Airtel Nigeria in its financial report for the year ended March 31, 2022, had also reported a 41.1 per cent increase in data revenue.
According to NCC’s data, Nigerians consumed 350,165 terabytes of data last year, which is 70 per cent increase from 205, 880 terabytes consumed in 2020.
The operators continue to expand their 4G service across the country leading to a continuous increase in data consumption by subscribers.
As of March this year, Airtel said 43.6 per cent of its data customers were already on 4G and were contributing 76 per cent of total data usage on the network.
Between January and March 2022, Airtel said data usage per customer on 4G reached 6.5 GB per month, a significant increase from the 4.6 GB usage per customer per month recorded in the same period last year.
Source: https://www.blueprint.ng/nigerias-mobile-subscription-surges-to-151m/