Nigeria controls 82% of Africa’s telecoms market
Having earned the appellation as the continent’s largest economy, Nigeria has also been estimated to account for 82 per cent of the continent’s telecoms market by subscriptions.
Professor Umar Danbatta, the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, who revealed this recently during his convocation lecture, titled, “Empowering the Nigeria Youth Through Information and Communications Technology (ICT)” held at Fountain University, Osogbo, also added that the country also controls 29 per cent internet usage in the Sub-Saharan Africa.
The NCC boss also added that the telecommunications sector contributed 12.45 per cent to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), as at the third quarter of 2021.
Prof Danbatta disclosed that the ICT sector has been consistently contributing above 10 per cent of Nigeria’s GDP for over 10 years.
He noted, “Nigeria is Africa’s largest ICT market with 82 per cent of the continent’s telecoms subscribers and 29 per cent of internet usage.
“As of fourth quarter of 2020, the telecoms sector alone contributed 12.45% to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Nigeria.”
He added that Sub-Saharan Africa is also projected to have an additional subscriber enrolment of over 167 million and Nigeria is expected to account for over 55per cent.
“NCC has put in-place various ICT youth empowerment initiatives to aid in creating a digitally skilled workforce that will fit into the Digital Economy Project of Nigeria.
“We are committed to fostering partnership and collaboration with the Technology Hubs and Start-ups, to accelerate innovations and the creation of a digitally skilled workforce for industrial growth and sustainable development of the nation,” he said.
A peep into the latest official Data
Latest statistics from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) shows that active mobile lines and internet connections grew month on month by 0.6 per cent and 0.1 per cent to 193.2 million and 140.1 million respectively in November 2021.
The steady monthly growth recorded in the last four months is supported by increased SIM card sales following the lifting of the NCC’s ban on new SIM card registrations.
Meanwhile, the country is still unwinding active subscribers it lost to the hiatus in registration of new Subscribers Identification Module (SIM) cards and retrieval of lost ones due to harmonization of subscribers’ data with their National Identity Numbers (NIN),
Specifically, on a year by year basis, active mobile lines and internet connections recorded -7.1 per cent and -9.3 per cent declines respectively.
Delving into internet subscriptions by operator, NCC data shows that despite the modest increase in total internet subscriptions in the last four months, MTN and 9mobile recorded month on month declines averaging -0.4 per cent and -1.4 per cent respectively.
On the flip side, Airtel and Globacom saw average monthly increases of 0.6 per cent and 0.7 per cent respectively.
