Broadband penetration rebounded to 42.24 percent from 41.56 percent in September.
According to data released by the commission, subscription numbers begun to pick up, with 2.69 million new lines registered in one month, pushing total numbers to 157.32 million in October 2024.
MTN’s subscriber base rose to 80.38 million, Glo declined to 19.11 million, 9mobile fell to 3.39 million, while Airtel rose to 54.45 million.
The rebound followed a Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) audit, which removed 64.37 million lines from the national subscription base between March and September this year.
Whereas some of these lines were lost due to the completion of the Subscriber Identification Modules (SIMs) and the National Identification Number (NIN) linkage exercise, most stopped existing because of an NCC audit of the industry.
According to the NCC, “One Mobile Network 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.”
A breakdown of the numbers showed that MTN’s subscriber base declined by 4.53 percent to 78.09 million in the period, Airtel fell by 15.17 percent to 53.75 million, Glo slumped by 69.20 percent to 19.15 million, while 9mobile decreased by 68.82 percent to 11.66 million.
However, subscription numbers have begun to pick up, with 2.69 million new lines registered in one month, pushing total numbers to 157.32 million in October 2024. MTN’s subscriber base rose to 80.38 million, Glo declined to 19.11 million, 9mobile fell to 3.39 million, while Airtel rose to 54.45 million.
This rebound pushed Nigeria’s internet usage to an all-time high of 870,398.28 terabytes (TB) as of October 2024, a 28.9 percent increase from the 675,250.54 TB reported in the same period last year.
According to the report, 4G continues to be the dominant network in Nigeria, capturing 46.27 percent of the market. This was followed by 2G (42 percent), 3G (9.40 percent), and 2.33 percent.
Nigeria’s internet subscription growth has been fuelled by the increase in smartphone penetration, which has been driven by entry-level Chinese phones.
The smartphone market in Nigeria grew by one percent in the third quarter of 2024 because of the naira’s depreciation, which fell by over 60 percent between January and September 2024.