Nigeria’s Active Mobile Subscriber Lines Rebound To 148.8million

Active mobile telephone subscriber lines in Nigeria has witnessed a major rebound from 147.5 million in April to 148.8 million at the end of May 2016.

This was revealed in the latest statistics posted on the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, website at the weekend.

The subscriber lines had dropped following the shedding of over 6.7 million unregistered numbers from the network of MTN Nigeria in recent months.

This was as a result of the implementation of the compulsory registration of subscriber biometric data in line with NCC’s 2011 Simcard Registration Guidelines.

The growth in active subscription to the recovery in teledensity, now stands at 106.32 per cent, according to the latest official data. The total number of telephone lines so far connected on telecoms networks till date remains constant in the last three months at 218.7 million, there was a surge in the number of active lines.

Of the 218.7 million total connected lines (including active and inactive), the active lines increased from 147.56 million to 148.84 million, with on the Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication segment exclusively contributing the growth.

For instance, while GSM operators including Globacom, MTN, Etisalat and Airtel increased their active subscriptions from 146.86 million in April to 148.18 million at the end of May, the code decision multiple access (CDMA) and fixed line operators lost subscriber from 525,743 to 487,141; and from 176,211 to 171,974 during the same two months period respectively.

The telecoms industry, which recorded its highest subscriber base of 52 million active lines in October 2015 with a teledensity of 108.57 per cent has witnessed some swinging growth in the last six months.