MTN, Airtel, Glo, 9Mobile others raked in N32.89bn from SMS in 2020
- As number of sent SMS upped by 29.4% to 8bn
Telecoms operators in Nigeria have realised N32.89 billion revenue from text messages (Short Message Service or SMS) sent by phone users in the country in 2020, Business Metrics has gathered.
Data obtained from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) also indicated that in the year 2020, total number of national SMS sent grew by 29.4 per cent as it was placed at over 8 billion (8,223,933,975.02).
Findings showed that is according to the analysis of data released by the Nigerian Communications Commission recently released in a document titled ‘2020 Subscriber/Network Data Report’.
It is to be recalled that the Nigerian telecommunications regulator, NCC had pegged the cost of SMS at N4 per page.
The commission clearly stated that the total number of national SMS both sent and received as of December 2020 was 17,364,524,490.02. This is a decline of 43.6 per cent from that of the total SMS sent and received in the year 2019 that stood at 30,769,238,164.56 SMS.
However, NCC highlighted that there was a 29.4% increase in the number of SMS sent out in the year 2020 compared to the year 2019.
Conversely, the year 2020 count of incoming SMS declined by (62.6 per cent) higher than that of the year 2019.
The total national SMS received for the year 2020 was placed at over 9.14billion (9,140,590,515.00).
MTN recorded the highest count of SMS received (6,290,889,268) in the year 2020 the highest count of SMS sent (6,100,543,865) within the period under review, bringing its total to 12,391,433,133.
Airtel on its part for the period under review recorded about 4.3 billion (4,246,262,638) total SMS messages, as the SMS sent on its network was placed 1,812,221,611 while national SMS messages received was placed at 2,434,041,027.
Globacom had a total number of 72,190,076 national SMS on its network, breaking it down to 4,937,703 as the number of SMS sent in the year 2020 while 67,252,373 was the total number of SMS received on its network for the period under review.
Business Metrics’s finding also revealed that EMTS (9mobile) recorded 288,867,077.02 as the number of SMS sent on its network while the total number of SMS received was placed at 343,997,390 bringing its total to 632,864,467.02.
The national sent SMS messages recorded on the SMILE network was placed at 15,225,166 while the SMS received was 2,259,646, thereby recording a total number of 17,484,812 for the period under review.
The total outgoing SMS recorded on the NTEL network for the year 2020 was 2,138,553 while the incoming SMS messages were 2,150,811, bringing its total to 4,289,364 for the period under review.
Furthermore, the Nigerian Telecoms Regulator revealed that the total number of international SMS sent increased from 56,205,299 in the year 2019 to 57,566,961 as of the Year 2020; this indicates a 2.4% increase in SMS international received in the year 2020.
Similarly, the number of international SMS received in the year 2019 increased from 183,518,472 SMS to 229,173,132 SMS. This translated to a 24.9% increase.
Airtel recorded the highest count of incoming SMS (173,756,541) while MTN recorded the highest count of SMS sent (42,444,130) in the year 2020.
NCC also put total outgoing local and national traffic at 150,825,830,687.40 minutes.
According to the commission, the total outgoing local and national traffic was 150,825,830,687.40 minutes while total incoming local and national traffic was 151,871,687,402.67 minutes.
The commission also said that total outgoing mobile international traffic for the year was 453,202,089.27 minutes while total incoming international traffic to mobile was 717,166,679.72 minutes.
