Nigeria’s Active Phone Users Increase by 18.5 Million in One Year

…As Mobile Subscribers hit 192 Million in May

The number of active mobile phone users in Nigeria has increased by 18.5 million year-on-year in May 2020.

Findings by Business Remarks revealed that the total number of active telephony subscriptions hits 192,267,890 at the end of May 2020.

This was against 173,672,333 recorded as mobile subscribers for May 2019 according to the latest data released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

While 18,595,557 new active phone users were added YoY for the period under review; 1,461,823 of the total subscribers were added in a month between April and May of the year 2020.

In its industry statistics, NCC disclosed that as at April 2020 active telephony subscribers in Nigeria were placed at 190,806,067.

The uptrend recorded represents 1.46 million additional telephone users who came onboard networks of various service providers and have continued to use their subscribers’ identity module (SIM) cards to access telecommunication services.

In its industry statistics seen by Business Remarks, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) disclosed as at April 2020, active telephony subscribers in Nigeria were placed at 190,806,067.

According to the telecommunications regulator, NCC, all the active lines are on the networks of providers in global service for mobile communication service (GSM), Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) popularly known as landline, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and fixed networks.

While the total active telephone users in the country increased tremendously, teledensity has equally grown to hit 100.72 percent for the month under review.

Further findings show that the growth in teledensity, as well as active telephone lines in the system, indicate expansion in the coverage of telecoms services in the country and a rise in the potential revenue base of operators.

ALSO READ: Mobile Telecoms Subscribers Hit 190.8 Million in April

As the GSM technology continues to dominate the space by claiming the largest chunk of telephone users being served in the country by 99.82 percent, mobile landlines have technically degenerated to zero percent while fixed wired and wireless and VoIP claim 0.06 percent and 0.12 percent of the distribution respectively.

It is to be noted that for the month under review, May 2020, MTN topped the chart as the largest operator by subscriber base which stood at 76.02 million, despite losing 655,784 active users from its April subscribers base.

MTN Nigeria was followed by Globacom with 52.06 million active subscribers while Airtel and Vodafone recorded 51.50 million and 137,086 respectively.

Similarly, Globacom and Airtel gained 218,964 and 237,874 new active users respectively for the month under review.

However, as at the last count in May 2020, 9mobile had 12,225,678 users losing over 342 thousand users as against 12,568,088 users recorded for April 2020.