Telecoms subscriptions surge as MTN, Airtel drive sector growth

By Funmilola Gboteku

Nigeria’s telecommunications sector has witnessed a robust recovery, with active subscriptions surging to 169.3 million in January 2025, up from 164.9 million in December 2024.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) made this known in an industry statistics on its website.

The telecoms regulator said that this robust recovery followed a period of decline, which saw subscriptions plummet to 154,904,827 in September 2024.

It said that the decline in subscriptions was largely due to the mass deactivation of over 42 million SIM cards in February 2024 and the sector’s rebasing in September 2024.

The NCC, however, noted that the sector had gradually regained momentum, with subscriptions increasing to 164,926,599 in December 2024, before reaching the current high of 169,318,076 in January 2025.

“The growth was driven by two network operators, MTN and Airtel, that recorded an increase in their subscriber base in the month under review.

“This growth momentum has also boosted the country’s teledensity, which measures the penetration of active telephone connections to 78.10 per cent, marking a significant increase from the 76.08 per cent recorded in December 2024,” it said.

On market share, the industry statistics showed that MTN Nigeria solidified its position by increasing its market share to 51.7 per cent with 87.5 million subscribers in January 2025 , up from 84.6 million in December 2024.

It said that Airtel also demonstrated resilience, expanding its subscriber base to 57.6 million with a market share of 34.1 per cent, up from 56.6 million in the preceding month.

Earlier and current NCC statistics showed that Globacom, which faced a decline in subscribers earlier in 2024 due to a regulatory audit, was gradually showing signs of recovery.

It showed that Globacom grew its subscriber base from 20.1 million in December 2024 to 20.5 million in January 2025.

On the other hand, the statistics showed that 9mobile’s market share continued to decline.

“This decline is a far cry from 9mobile’s erstwhile dominance, when it boasted 23.4 million subscribers and a 15.7 per cent market share in 2015.

“The company’s stagnant subscriber base, which has remained unchanged at 3.2 million for three consecutive months, further accentuates this decline,” it said.

On porting activities, industry statistics showed that Nigeria’s fourth mobile network operator, 9mobile, has continued to experience a decline in its subscriber base, with 6716 customers porting out of its network in January.

According to the NCC’s report on incoming and outgoing porting activities of mobile network operators, a total of 8708 subscribers moved from one network to another in January.

The report showed that other operators recorded insignificant outgoing porting numbers compared to 9mobile.

According to the NCC, MTN lost 1188 customers, Airtel recorded 399 outgoing porting, Globacom recorded 405, while 9mobile lost 6716 in January.

In terms of incoming porting, MTN gained the most customers from other operators, with 5,551 subscribers joining its network, the regulatory body revealed.

The report showed that Airtel recorded 2414 incoming porting, while Globacom gained 736 customers.

Meanwhile, the NCC statistics noted that 9mobile recorded only seven incoming porting for the month of January.

Looking at the report, we can see that there were more incoming and outgoing porting activities in January 2025 than December 2024.

It said that a total of 2998 activities were recorded in December 2024 while January 2025 had 8708 porting activities.

The report revealed an increase of 5710 in mobile number portability activities in January 2025 when compared to December 2024. (NAN