Our chart below, drawn from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) data, shows that active mobile lines and internet connections grew modestly by 1.1% and 0.3% m/m to 212.2 million and 152.8 million respectively. This represents a teledensity of c.106% and an internet penetration rate of c.76.4% based on a population of 200 million. Subscriber growth has now resumed on a steady trajectory. On a y/y basis, September’s growth rate of 11.2% y/y marks the second-highest growth rate this year.

Mobile network providers have gained a total of 17 million new mobile subscribers since the beginning of this year, a departure from last year’s loss of 9 million subscribers due to the government’s ban on new SIM registration between December 2020 to April 2021.

MTN Nigeria (MTNN), the largest operator by subscriber numbers, had a market share, c.38% of total active subscriptions.

Globacom and Airtel came in second and third, respectively, with subscriber market shares of 28.0% and 27.6% respectively. 9Mobile accounted for a paltry market share of 6.1%.

The increase in active mobile subscribers was driven by MTNN, which recorded the highest net subscriber gain of 1.6 million.

Globacom retained its second position with net subscriber additions of almost 525,000, while. Airtel recorded a modest accretion of over 33,000 new lines.

In its latest Q3 ’22 financial results, the industry leader, MTN Nigeria (MTNN) showed robust growth across all core revenue lines, including data and digital revenue which expanded by 46% and 36% y/y respectively. Voice revenue grew by 7.5% y/y.

However, it recorded a net subscriber churn of about 57,000 in the period (net additions of about 5.7 million on a 9-month basis) due to the lingering effects of the restriction on NIN-SIM linkage defaulters.

9mobile gained almost 84,000 mobile subscribers in September 2022, after recording losses of subscribers in the past months. This brought its total active subscribers to 12.8 million in September.

According to the recent GDP report, the telecommunication sector expanded by 10% y./y in Q3 ’22, slightly below the 10.9% it delivered in the preceding year.