Nigeria now has 143 million telecoms subscribers – NBS

According to the bureau, the Nigerian telecoms sector recorded a significant growth from 2.27 million subscribers in 2002, when the first mobile license was issued, to 143.05 million. It noted that MTN is still the dominant operator in terms of the number of subscriptions with 61.21 million subscribers  representing 42.84% of the total number of subscribers in Nigeria.
The second largest operator is Globacom with 30.03 million telecoms subscribers (21%), followed by Airtel with a subscriber base of 28.6 million or 20.4 per cent and Etisalat with 22.3 million telecoms subscribers or 15.69 per cent followed in that order respectively.
In terms of contribution to the economy, the report said the telecoms sector in real terms recorded a growth rate of 5.26 per cent in the opening quarter of this year with a contribution of N134 billion to economic output.
It said annual growth in the sector averaged 46.29 per cent between 2002 and 2014, with the highest rate recorded in 2004 at 153.65 per cent while the lowest rise of 8.53 per cent was recorded in 2011.
It said, “Since May 2014, monthly growth in GSM subscribers has averaged 0.95 per cent with the greatest increase being recorded in December 2014 at 1.97 per cent and the lowest in July of the same year at 0.43 per cent.
“The growth in subscribers was mainly driven by Globacom, which recorded an average rate of 1.45 per cent over the period, followed by Etisalat with 1.37 per cent and Airtel with 1.29 per cent while MTN recorded the lowest average monthly growth in subscribers at 0.44%.”