The data made available by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) revealed that 2.69 million new telephone lines were activated by telecommunications operators in October.
This revelation was made after the NCC audit removed 64.37 million lines from the national subscription base between March and September. The majority of those affected by the removal had issues because their Subscriber Identification Modules (SIMs) were not linked to their National Identification Numbers (NINs).
Also, the NCC audit discovered that a major operator was found to have incorrectly reported around 40 million subscribers as active, despite the absence of any revenue-generating activity over a 90-day period. This was in direct violation of the Commission’s guidelines for determining active subscribers and led to an inflated report of the operator’s subscriber base, thereby skewing industry statistics.
In the latest data, some of the operators increased their market share while others lost. MTN’s subscriber base rose to 80.38 million; Glo declined to 19.11 million, while Airtel rose to 54.45 million.
This growth pushed the country’s Internet usage to an all-time high of 870,398.28 terabytes (TB), a 28.9 per cent increase from the 675,250.54 TB reported in the same period last year.
According to the NCC, mobile Internet subscriptions reached 134 million in October after falling to 132.41 million in September from 163.89 million in March. Broadband penetration rebounded to 42.24 per cent from 41.56 per cent in September.
In terms of network dominance, further analysis of the data showed that 4G remained the most deployed network in Nigeria, capturing 46.27 per cent of the market. This was followed by 2G (42 per cent), 3G (9.4 per cent) and 5G, 2.33 per cent.
Meanwhile, concerns are mounting over the operations of Mafab Communications, which also won a 5G license two years ago, alongside MTN. While MTN continues to invest and roll out sites in over 30 cities of Nigeria currently, nothing physical can be pointed to from Mafab Communications.
This is even as the NCC has continued to defend the firm, claiming it currently operates in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt. There is no concrete information about Mafab on the NCC website.
Concerns are also mounting over the continued decline in 9mobile subscriptions. In the last two weeks, subscribers have had no network on 9mobile. While the management of 9mobile has not provided users with reasons for the zero network, statistics from NCC showed that the telecoms operator fell to 3.39 million with 2.15 per cent penetration.
NCC data showed that 9mobile lost approximately 8.6 million subscribers between August 2016 and 2023. From January to October 2024, it lost an additional 10.4 million subscribers following an NCC industry audit that removed subscribers without proper NIN-SIM registration from the system.
As part of repositioning the 9mobile, a new firm, LH Telecoms, earlier in the year, announced a major acquisition in the telecommunications firm. The acquisition, including leadership changes, is steps taken to reposition the embattled firm.
In August 2023, it appointed Obafemi Banigbe as CEO, followed by the appointments of John Vasikaran as COO and Ayodeji Adedeji as Chief Technical and Information Officer in July 2024. 9mobile said in a statement that these changes aim to stabilise the company and position it for the future.