Nigeria’s active phone lines have hit over a 100 million. The milestone now makes the country Africa’s fastest growing telecoms market.
Over 90 percent of the phone lines are on the country’s four GSM networks. The 17 CDMA operators share the remaining 10 percent with a strong indication that their market share is headed to ramp.
Nigeria’s GSM is projected to grow more than 90 million given the influx of affordable handsets and ease of use compared to fixed line subscription.
According to the Informa Telecoms forecast, Nigeria’s mobile subscription will be way ahead of all other African countries including Egypt, SA, Ghana and Kenya. The study shows Nigeria could have over 152 million mobile subscriptions in 2016, Egypt 118 million subscriptions and South Africa some 80.56 million mobile subscriptions.
Nigeria is also recording key strides in its vision to place broadband as the next economic frontier after oil.
The GSM territory
Nigeria’s GSM networks dominate the telecoms market with four operators and more than 90 percent market share. Mobile operators MTN Nigeria, Glo Mobile, Airtel Nigeria and Etisalat Nigeria, account for about 94.2 million active lines of the 99 million active lines. More than 17 telecom operators share over 4.8 million active lines out of the 100 million milestone for the first quarter.
MTN Nigeria has some 42.8 million active lines while Glo Mobile has 20.8 million active lines.
Airtel Nigeria has connected an 18.6 million active lines while Etisalat Nigeria has about 12 million.
The GSM sector has shown a steady growth with Q1 2012 active lines at 94.5 million compared to February’s 92 million active lines.
The decline of CDMA in Nigeria
Contrary to the enormous growth of the GSM networks, Nigeria’s CDMA networks recorded subscriber decline from 5.5 million active lines to 5.2 million active lines by Q3 2011. The acute subscriber loss reached 4.6 million active lines by end of 2011.
In January 2012, there were 4.4 million CDMA active. By March, there were only about 4 million showing a decline.
It’s not only the CDMA networks declining. The country’s fixed wireless networks stood at about 828,000 active lines by Q3 2011, and declined to just over 719,000 by the end of 2011.
Broadband leader in Africa
Away from GSM and CDMA battles, Nigerian is also making strides in broadband access, according to an ITU report.
Nigeria is part of the countries taking broadband as part of universal service obligations, making Internet access a utility in the country.
Finland was the first nation to declare broadband a legal right in 2009, entitling every person to have access to a 1 Mbit/s Internet connection by mid-2010. Nigeria’s NCC is in plans to put out an open access model infrastructure to ensure broadband is deployed across the country.
The report puts Nigeria among some 30 countries with increasing broadband access. Others are China, Spain, Switzerland, Peru, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Brazil, Ghana, Morocco and Uganda.
What the numbers mean
With over 100 million active subscribers and 90 percent of them mobile, Nigeria’s mobile industry is set to grow rapidly. A recent InMobi survey indicated that Nigeria topped in mobile ads followed closely by Kenya.
The growth in mobile numbers heralds gaming and infotainment, expected to be at its revenue’s peak by 2016. Mobile developers in Africa will also benefit much as the top country embarks on its quest for local content.
