MTN extends lead, now accounts for 60.5% of Nigeria’s fibre broadband market

MTN Nigeria has extended its lead as a major player in Nigeria’s fibre broadband market, accounting for more than half of all Fibre to the X (FTTX) subscriptions in the third quarter of 2026.

The latest industry data by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) shows that MTN has 242,916 FTTX subscriptions as of Q3 2026 (as against 176,468 in Q2), representing 60.47% of the 401,666 subscriptions recorded across the market.

The latest development extends the telecoms giant’s dominance and places it far above traditional internet service providers (ISPs). Its closest competitor, FiberOne Broadband, recorded 60,161 subscriptions, which accounted for approximately 16% of the FTTX market.

Also read: Nigeria’s 5G market share hits 5% as 3G continues to decline.

The data comes amid an increase in data consumption by Nigerians, with reliance on mobile networks (4G/5G) creating capacity bottlenecks. 

For MTN, FibreX has been a major push in the FTTX trend over the past year and remains the operator’s attempt to meet Nigerians’ growing demand for high-speed internet. 

Expanding its FTTX footprint means that MTN can offload high-bandwidth residential demand and traffic, such as streaming, large file downloads and uploads, 4K videos, cloud computing, and heavy remote work, to dedicated fixed fibre networks, freeing up spectrum on mobile networks.

Aside from MTN and FiberOne Broadband accounting for a joint 76.5% market share, other operators also made notable contributions. 

Other leading providers included ipNX Nigeria with 14,933 subscriptions, Broadbased Communication with 10,929, Ngcom with 5,670, Airtel with 5,654 and Luli Fibra Cables Solution with 4,522.

MTN controls the Nigerian telecoms industry 

Aside from its dominance in the fibre broadband markets, MTN also showed its presence as a leading telecoms company in Nigeria.

The latest industry update showed that MTN extended its lead by adding 2.1 million users in September 2026 to 104.65 million users while Airtel stayed second with 68.04 million subscribers after adding approximately 600,000 new users during the month. 

Globacom is third with 23.8 million active phone lines, following about 300,000 new subscribers. T2mobile (9mobile) remains fourth with 3.6 million subscribers, the same count it had in July 2026. 

While Nigerian internet subscribers (excluding internet service providers) have now reached 160.9 million in September 2026 from 158.5 million in August 2026, MTN Nigeria led with 86.5 million.

Following the leading operator is Airtel Nigeria with 57.2 million. Globacom added 151,000 new internet users to reach 15.9 million, while T2mobile (9mobile) stood at 810,010, the same as August and July 2026.