internreport

2014
A REPORT ON
SUBSCRIBERS, INDUSTRY
AND OPERATOR DATA
FOR
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
SERVICE PROVIDERS IN
NIGERIA
Culled from NCC website
Fakorede Olumide Daniel & Babatunde Okutubo Micheal
Paradigm Initiative Nigeria
5/1/2014

CONNECTED LINES (FEB 2013 – FEB 2014)
From Feb 2013 to Feb 2014 there has been a steady increase in number of connected GSM lines across
Nigeria. From 143,372,286 connected lines in Feb 2013 to 167,371,945 in Feb 2014. However, there was
a drop in connected lines in May 2013 and September 2013.
ACTIVE LINES (FEB 2013 – FEB 2014)
There has also been an increase in the number of non-­‐active lines between the periods of Feb 2013 to
Feb 2014. From about 30 million in Feb 2013 to over 42 million in Feb 2014.

INSTALLED CAPACITY (FEB 2013 – FEB 2014)
From the data on the Installed capacity, it can be observed that all telecoms companies still have the
capacity is accommodate more subscribers.
However there was a decrease in installed capacity between May 2013 and September 2013, which also
led to a decrease in amount of connected and active lines for these months.
From the data above, it can be said that majority of telecom subscribers make use of GSM over CDMA
and Fixed Wired/Wireless lines, with a steady decrease in connected and active lines observed from Feb
2013 to Feb 2014.
TELEDENSITY (FEB 2013 – FEB 2014)
There has been an increase in the teledensity of telecoms subscribers from Feb 2013 to Feb 2014 with a
slight drop between July and August 2013.

ANNUAL SUSCRIBERS DATA (2001 -­‐ 2012)
CONNECTED LINES
Data for Years 2007, 2008, and 2009 was not visible on the NCC website; however, it can be observed
there was an increase in connected GSM lines from 2001 to 2012. CDMA and Fixed Wired/Wireless did
not witness any significant increase during this period.
ACTIVE LINES
120,000,000
100,000,000
80,000,000
60,000,000
40,000,000
20,000,000
0
CONNECTED LINES MOBILE (GSM)
ACTIVE LINES MOBILE(CDMA)
ACTIVE LINES FIXED WIRED/
WIRELESS
ACTIVE LINES TOTAL

Data for the years 2001, 2002,2003,2004,2005,and2006 was not visible on the NCC website. From the
above graph it can be observed that while there has been an increased in active GSM lines, there has
been a decrease in both active CDMA and Fixed Wired/Wireless lines.
INSTALLED CAPACITY
250,000,000
200,000,000
150,000,000
100,000,000
50,000,000
0
ACTIVE LINES MOBILE (GSM)
INSTALLED CAPACITY MOBILE
(CDMA)
INSTALLED CAPACITY FIXED WIRED/
WIRELESS
INSTALLED CAPACITY TOTAL
It can be observed that all telecom sectors have experienced an increase in installed capacity over the
years.
% PERCENTAGE MARKET SHARE BY OPERATOR FOR FEBRUARY 2014

It can be observed that MTN has the largest percentage market share followed by Airtel and Globacom
while MTEL has zero percent market share.
% PERCENTAGE MARKET SHARE BY TECHNOLOGY FOR FEBRUARY 2014
From the chart above, it can be observed that GSM has the account largest percentage of market share
by technology , while both CDMA and Fixed wired/wireless accounts for a little over 2 percent of the
total market share.
MOBILE TARIFF PEAK PERIOD (2007 -­‐ 2011)

It can be observed that there has a been a fluctuation in the tarriff rates for peak period of both on-­‐net
and off-­‐net from 2007 to 2011 with 2008 having the highest tarriff.
GSM OPERATORS DATA FOR 2013
MTN GLO AIRTEL ETISALAT MTEL
258520 258520 258520
15114484 15303647 15759810
258520
17035276
27670986
21591904 22726698
24847567
23833796
25019862 24129183
25933867
51294645
55238430 55596025 56766085
1-­‐Mar 1-­‐Apr 1-­‐May 1-­‐Jun 1-­‐Jul 1-­‐Aug 1-­‐Sep 1-­‐Oct 1-­‐Nov 1-­‐Dec

CDMA OPERATORS DATA FOR 2013
STARCOMMS VISAFONE MULTILINKS ZOOM
111077
207872
111077
151688
111077
85050
111077
50135
2138154
2094785
2438590
2063330
246501 209627 188053 180235
1-­‐Mar 1-­‐Apr 1-­‐May 1-­‐Jun 1-­‐Jul 1-­‐Aug 1-­‐Sep 1-­‐Oct 1-­‐Nov 1-­‐Dec

FIXED WIRELESS OPERATORS DATA FOR 2013
450000
400000
350000
300000
250000
200000
GLO
NITEL
IPNX
WEBCOM
XSB
MONARCH
150000
RAINBOWNET
100000
ONET
50000
WITEL
0
1-­‐Mar 1-­‐Apr 1-­‐May 1-­‐Jun 1-­‐Jul 1-­‐Aug 1-­‐Sep 1-­‐Oct 1-­‐Nov 1-­‐Dec
DISC
ANALYSIS OF THE OPERATOR DATA BAR CHARTS ABOVE
From the GSM operators bar chart above, it can be derived that there was an increase in total number
of GSM users from 114, 172, 440 (in March 2013) to 117, 412, 363 (in June 2013) to 118, 470, 236 (in
September 2013) to 124, 841, 315 (in December 2013). This increase was due to the increasing
popularity of smartphones such as Blackberry, Androids and tablets which means that Internet users do
not necessarily need a computer or any other equipment (apart from their phones and subscription) to
connect to the Internet. Also, the introduction of cheaper internet subscription rates and cheap
smartphones also led to the increase in GSM usage in the country.
And from the CDMA operator data, the statistics reflected the continued dwindling fortunes of CDMA
operators. While some of the GSM subscribers grew their Internet users over a period of time, only
Visafone grew the number of its Internet subscribers among CDMA operators. Other CDMA operators
witnessed a big drop in their number of users. Among the GSM operators, MTN witnessed the highest
increase in GSM users, followed by GLO, then Airtel, and Etisalat. The least was MTEL, despite the
almost entire shift in by subscribers to the GSM operators, MTEL didn’t witness any increase in GSM
users.
Among the Fixed wireless operators, only Visafone and 21 st century Technologies witnessed increase in
users, others like O’NET, NITEL, Rainbow net users’ recorded constant values throughout the period.

Multilinks and Starcomms were also part of the operators that witnessed big decrease in the number of
users.
In general, there was a massive decrease in the number of users of fixed wireless, which is very obvious
from the fixed wireless operators data bar chart. This was because the initial charges of most of the ISPs
could only be afforded by the rich and corporate organisations.
PORTING DATA (INCOMING) (MAY2013-­‐
FEBRUARY 2014)
MTN GLO AIRTEL ETISALAT
3204
2960
11536
9374
2806 2977
3007 2950 3149
2999
2590
2897
2319 2950 2095 676 1814
3615 3894 2410
1031
531 470
895 1209 1641 1512 1359
711
1322 1082
545 545 503 367 609 458
913
792
1170
1-­‐Jan 1-­‐Feb 1-­‐Mar 1-­‐Apr 1-­‐May 1-­‐Jun 1-­‐Jul 1-­‐Aug 1-­‐Sep 1-­‐Oct 1-­‐Nov 1-­‐Dec
From the Porting data chart above, Airtel was the top gainer from the porting process. A lot of users
ported to Airtel , mostly in August 2013 and September 2013. During this period, Airtel had the cheapest
internet subscription rates for Smartphones. With #1,500, a smartphone user could have access to 1.5
GB of data, which costs about #3,000 from other operators. This made users port from other networks
to Airtel.
Apart from Airtel, Etisalat also witnessed big porting activities to the network, even though it was small
compared to that of Airtel. Users ported to Etisalat because during this period Etisalat had the fastest
Network. Users could download large data within a very short time. Also, Etisalat had cheaper call rates,
and this made users port to the Network.GLO followed Etisalat. MTN had the least numbers due to poor
services during this period.

ACTIVE INTERNET SUBSCRIPTIONS (CDMA)
(MARCH 2013 -­‐ FEBRUARY 2014)
Starcomms Visafone Mulilinks
29306 7570 26894 6508
85470
146818
69042
15859
87691
145263 92400
63198
15859
23572
20181
93422
17791 16190 16213
126165 127399 130257
36898 26457 25431 23167 21682
47117
12485
77573
133752
103547
19996
45565
12415
76760
138172
97090
18562
43833
11592
78975
143449
91539
15859
40677
10905 37751 9710
80900
147934 147399
78392
15859
81563
71156
15859
13-­‐Jan 13-­‐Feb 13-­‐Mar 13-­‐Apr 13-­‐May 13-­‐Jun 13-­‐Jul 13-­‐Aug 13-­‐Sep 13-­‐Oct 13-­‐Nov 13-­‐Dec
ACTIVE INTERNET SUBSCRIPTIONS (GSM)
(MARCH 2013 -­‐ FEBRUARY 2014)
Axis Title
70,000,000
60,000,000
50,000,000
40,000,000
30,000,000
20,000,000
10,000,000
0
Feb
'14
Jan
'14
Dec Nov Oct Sep Aug
'13 '13 '13 '13 '13
Jul
'13
Jun May
'13 '13
Axis Title
Apr Mar Feb
'13 '13 '13
Jan
'13
Dec Nov Oct Sep
'12 '12 '12 '12

% PERCENTAGE CONTRIBUTIONS OF
TELECOMS INDUSTRY TO GDP (2001 -­‐SEP
2013)
Sep' 2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
ANALYSIS OF THE CHARTS ABOVE
From the active internet subscribers (GSM) chart, it can be seen that haas been a steady increase in
number of active GSM internet subscribers. This increase is due to the increasing popularity of
smartphones such as Blackberry, Androids and tablets which means that Internet users do not
necessarily need a computer or any other equipment (apart from their phones and subscription) to
connect to the Internet. Also, the introduction of cheaper internet subscription rates has also lead to
the increasing GSM usage in the country. The arrival of cheap smartphones in the country has also
contributed to the big leap.
While the number of Active GSM internet subscribers was boomed, the numbers of Active CDMA
internet subscribers kept dwindling, witnessing the highest number of internet subscribers in the month
of November 2013. The numbers remain little compared to that of the GSM internet subscribers.
From chart showing the Percentage contribution of the telecoms industry to GDP reveals that that there
has been a steady increase in the percentage contribution of the Telecoms industry to the nation’s GDP,
with September 2013 recording the highest percentage contribution of 7.76%. This is due to the
development in the Industry, with increasing numbers of investors investing in this sector of the
economy.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE NIGERIA TELECOMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY
The need for telecommmunications service provider to improve on there services can not be over
emphasize with the country still experienceing bad networks both in the rural and urban regions
Telecommunication service providers need to work closely with ISPs so as to reduce the cost of internet
subscriptions and enable the average Nigeria to enjoy the internet
The need for the Federal Government to also put in place neccesary legislations that will enable
telecomunication companies functions better.
We hope in the next few year, Nigeria’s telecommunications Industry will become one of the world
best.