The number of active subscribers for telephony services reported by licensed Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) operators reached 218,608,607 in November 2022, according to the statistics published on January 1, 2023 by the industry regulator – Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
According to the regulator, the GSM operators added 4,258,509 in the month under review when compared to the 214,350,098 active GSM subscribers in October 2022.
Active GSM Subscribers in Nigeria Source: NCC.gov.ng
The Commission noted that in November 2022, Nigeria’s telephony subscriptions increased to 218,953,849, which implies that 345,242 inactive telephony subscriptions in Nigeria as at November 2022.
Market Share by GSM Operators
MTN Nigeria maintained the market dominant with 86,434,447 active GSM subscribers as the company accounts for 39.54 per cent of the market share. The company increased the figures by 3,162,555 when compared to the 83,271,555 subscribers it recorded in October 2022.
Globacom emerged second on the table with 59,950,116 which accounts for 27.42 per cent of the GSM market. This indicates that Glo added 312,274 more subscribers than 59,637,842 it recorded in October 2022.
Airtel Nigeria emerged third on the chart with 27.16 per cent market share as it reported 59,382,939 active GSM subscribers in November 2022 when compared to 58,669,071 it recorded in October 2022. This means that Airtel lost 713,868 subscribers in November 2022.
9mobile came fourth position on the chart with 12,841,105 subscribers and accounts for 5.87 per cent GSM market share in Nigeria. This also means that the operator gained 69,812 active GSM subscribers when compared to the 12,771,293 it reported in October.
Leading Fixed Wired Operators in Nigeria
No statistics was released for Fixed Wired for the month under review, but in October 2022, the Fixed Wired operators recorded a total of 97,961 active subscriptions.
However, the leading operators include, 21st Century (86,404 subscribers), MTN Fixed (7,638), Glo Fixed (2,702), and ipNX (1,217).
Leading VoIP in Nigeria
Smile Communications and nTel are the leading Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), operators in Nigeria. Smile as at October 2022 reported 246,393 subscribers, while nTel came second with 1,775 subscribers.
CDMA is inactive in Nigeria
The CDMA and Fixed Wireless are no longer ‘markets of interest’ to operators as NCC last reported on them in March 2019. The CDMA and Fixed Wireless have inactive subscribers.