Nigeria’s mobile subscriptions declined by 2.5 million in April 2023

Nigeria’s mobile subscriptions declined by 2.5 million in April, leaving a dent in the country’s march toward mobile inclusion for all. This was revealed in the latest industry statistics released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

This decline comes after mobile subscriptions reached an all-time high of 227.17 million in February of this same year. Since then, the numbers have steadily been decreasing, reflecting a concerning trend for the nation’s mobile connectivity.

In MTN Nigeria’s first-quarter report, Chief Executive Officer, Karl Toriola, highlighted several factors impacting the company’s consumers, including global macroeconomic conditions, inflation, and cash shortages. Toriola explained that these factors, along with local challenges such as petrol and cash shortages, had added pressure to economic activities, consumers, and businesses alike.

 “We continued to experience headwinds in our operating environment in the first quarter of 2023. The impacts of the ongoing global macroeconomic and geopolitical developments on energy, food, and general inflation were exacerbated locally by petrol and cash shortages experienced during the period. This placed additional pressure on economic activity, consumers, and businesses.”

Karl Toriola

Read more: ICT sector contributed N3.1 trillion to Nigeria’s GDP in Q1 2023 representing 17.47%

What contributed to the mobile subscription decline?

The mobile subscription first fell to 225.82 million in March, before slumping further to 223.34 million in April, according to new industry data from the Nigerian Communications Commission. This is also the first time since June 2021 that mobile subscriptions have fallen consistently.

The decline in mobile subscriptions can be attributed to the discontinuation of SIM cards that have not been linked with the National Identification Number (NIN), as mandated by the government. Data from the operators revealed that MTN Nigeria suffered the highest subscription loss of 2.8 million, contributing significantly to the overall decline.

A total of 96.8 million Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards out of 323.6 million registered cards were abandoned by subscribers as of February 2023. This number of unused mobile lines represented 29.9 per cent of the total registered SIMs. This has adversely affected revenue generation for telcos in the first quarter of 2023 as they would not be able to generate revenue from the unused SIM cards that are supposed to subscribe to both voice calls and data.

Read more: MTN loses over 1m subscribers as Nigeria’s broadband penetration drops by 0.28%

Despite experiencing a loss in mobile subscriptions for three consecutive months, MTN Nigeria remains the largest mobile network operator in the country. Its total active subscriptions decreased from 92.71 million to 88.68 million during the review period.

The decline in actively connected lines also resulted in a drop in the country’s teledensity, which measures the number of active telephone connections per 100 inhabitants in an area. In April, the teledensity stood at 117.17%, down from 118.48% in March. The calculation is based on an estimated population of 190 million, as per the NCC.

Performance by other operators

Examining the performance of other operators, Glo recorded a slight increase of 128,017 subscriptions during the month, allowing it to maintain its position as the second-largest operator by subscriber numbers. Glo’s total subscriptions rose from 60.7 million in March to 60.9 million in April.

Airtel experienced a marginal increase of 3,285 subscriptions in its database, bringing its total subscriptions to 60.33 million in April from 60.32 million in March.

On the other hand, 9mobile witnessed the highest gain in April, with its database growing by 262,737 subscriptions. This increase elevated its total active subscriptions from 13.1 million in March to 13.4 million in April.

In November 2020, the total number of subscriptions across the networks in Nigeria was reported to be 207.5 million. However, starting from December of that year, a decline in subscriptions was observed, leading to a significant drop to 188.9 million by August 2021. Nevertheless, over the past 18 months, the operators have managed to achieve consistent growth in subscriptions.