Photograph — Eugenia Lin

The Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) released a report stating that the total number of subscribers to the Global System of Mobile communication (GSM) in Nigeria, reached 185.74 million in January 2020, And it is also growing by 7 percent year-on-year. 

The report further stated that mobile network operators gained a total of 12.12 million new subscribers.

Furthermore, the report stated that mobile network operator, Globacom earned the most subscribers last year with an addition of 6.15 million new customers to its network making its total subscribers 51,755,561 by January 2020.

Indian global telecommunications services company, Airtel, added 5.03 million new customers and reached 49,997,710 users, while Africa’s largest network MTN gained 4.03 million new subscribers in one year, earning a total of 70,693,058 GSM users.

Meanwhile, 9mobile was the only operator that lost subscribers in the one-year duration, the NCC research also found that 3.23 mobile network users abandoned the platform, due to this its subscribers reduced to 13,157,543 mobile users.

The report also indicated that Visafone customers reached 138,144 by January this year.

 MTN remained the largest network with 38 percent market share, while Globacom had 27.86 percent and Airtel earned the third spot with 26.92 percent, in the fourth position 9mobile had 7.08 percent.

Communication which is an essential part of human existence has a huge demand in Nigeria because of its estimated population of over 200 million people, making the West African country Africa’s most populous nation. 

Currently, there is no legal age restriction on the ownership of mobile phones in Nigeria which makes the market more appealing to investors.

Over the years, the evident prospects of the Nigerian telecommunications industry have attracted mobile network investors from the United Kingdom-Vodafone, India- Zain, South Africa-Econet, the United Arab Emirates-Etisalat.

The growing number of mobile network subscribers can also enhance the prevalent use of financial technology (FinTech) services like money transfers.

There has also been a consistent increase in financial transactions carried out via mobile phones or cellular gadgets. According to Nairametrics,’’ the number of mobile money transactions increased.14x to 217.8 million as at 9M 2019 from 15.9 million in 2013.’’ Thus making it evident that growth in mobile network users also spells a potential increase and wide acceptance for FinTech services in the country. Especially in rural areas where there are fewer banking halls or Automated Teller Machines- ATM. 

In a bid to make mobile network operations and also, the services that permit through their platform more secure for everyone, the NCC’s plans to gather intelligence through its department of compliance, Monitoring, and Enforcement.

The NCC Executive Vice-Chairman, Prof. Umar Danbatta, said, the agency through its collaboration with security officials plans to apprehend and prosecute people who register SIMs cards for bad intentions.

“That department is to enforce and make sure that all networks or individuals that don’t register or register wrongly with an intent to commit crime are dealt with. Once we get hold of them, we work with the security operatives,’’ Prof Umar said.

Elsewhere on Ventures

Triangle arrow