Telecoms Operators Record N3.8trn Total Revenue

Telecommunications operators in Nigeria recorded a total revenue of N3.8 trillion in 2022, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has revealed.

This represents an increase of 18.7 per cent when compared to N3.2 trillion recorded in 2021.

The telecom regulator disclosed this in its Subscriber/Network Data Annual Report 2022, released on the 9th of August, 2023.

According to the report, mobile network operators MTN, Globacom, Airtel, and 9mobile contributed 86 per cent of the industry’s revenue, demonstrating their dominance.

The four mobile operators’ combined revenue for the year was N3.3 trillion, while the combined revenue of other participants, such as Internet service providers (ISPs), value-added service (VAS) providers, and fixed wired operators, was N500 billion.  

On Capital Expenditures (CAPEX) of operators, the report revealed that CAPEX declined, while operating cost increased.

According to the industry data, all the operators spent the sum of N785.7 billion on CAPEX in 2022. This represents a 30 per cent decrease in CAPEX when compared with the N1.1 trillion spent in 2021.  

Meanwhile, operating cost for the companies increased by 17.6 per cent in the year. The report disclosed that operators spent N2 trillion on their operations in 2022 compared with N1.7 trillion spent in 2021.

The data also revealed that telecommunications subscribers in Nigeria consumed a total of 518,381.89 terabytes of data in 2022, an increase of 47 per cent when compared with the 353,118.89 terabytes consumed in 2021.  

According to the report, the number of Internet subscriptions across the networks also increased from 141.9 million as of December 2021 to 154.8 million as of December 2022 representing an increase of 9.06 per cent.

On active subscriptions, the report disclosed that, the number of active subscriptions across the telecom networks increased from 195.4 million in 2021 to 222.5 million as of December 2022.

This showed that the operators added 27.1 million subscriptions in the year, representing a 13.86 per cent increase in active subscriptions year on year.  

“The increase in the Operators’ subscriber base was attributed to a number of reasons which includes subscriber loyalty, promos, seasonal effects, aggressive consumer acquisition drive, and competitive product offerings across all the networks.

“The increase in Active Subscription impacted positively on other derived telecom indicators such as Teledensity, Internet Penetration as well as Broadband Penetration,” the report explained.