Mobile subscriptions in Nigeria saw a recovery in October 2024, reaching 157.32 million, following several months of decline. This rebound came after an audit by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), which had led to the removal of 64.37 million lines from the national subscription base between March and September 2024. The reduction in lines was partly due to the completion of the Subscriber Identification Modules (SIM) and National Identification Number (NIN) linkage exercise, with most lines removed as a result of the NCC’s industry audit.
The NCC revealed that one mobile network operator had inaccurately reported around 40 million subscribers as active, even though there had been no revenue-generating activity for over 90 days. This breach of the Commission’s guidelines for determining active subscribers had led to inflated figures, distorting the industry’s statistics.
A breakdown of the numbers showed a decline in subscriber bases across major network operators. MTN’s subscriber base dropped by 4.53% to 78.09 million, Airtel fell by 15.17% to 53.75 million, Glo saw a steep decline of 69.20% to 19.15 million, and 9mobile dropped by 68.82% to 11.66 million. However, subscription numbers began to rise again, with 2.69 million new lines added in just one month, bringing the total to 157.32 million in October 2024. MTN’s subscriber base increased to 80.38 million, Airtel grew to 54.45 million, Glo’s subscriber count dropped to 19.11 million, and 9mobile’s base fell to 3.39 million.
This growth also led to a record-high internet usage in the country, reaching 870,398.28 terabytes (TB) in October 2024, marking a 28.9% increase from 675,250.54 TB reported in the same period in 2023. Mobile internet subscriptions climbed to 134 million in October, after dropping to 132.41 million in September, down from 163.89 million in March. Broadband penetration improved to 42.24%, up from 41.56% in September.
