Statistical report from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) reveals that Nigerians consumed over N3.33tn on calls and Data subscriptions, in 2022 alone. Calculating it in bits, equals a total of 518,381.89 terabytes.
At the ‘2022 Subscriber/Network Data Annual Report’ Conference held in Abuja, NCC disclosed that the report interpreted that the telecommunication companies had a 47% revenue increase from the last report in 2021.
The report also revealed that this sporadic growth was due to active voice calls which rose to 222,571,568, giving 36.18% increase.
In 2021 report, NCC recorded 195,463,898 active subscribers.
Data subscription and usage grew by 46.77%, giving, N54.8m revenue. A total of 518,381.78 terabyte.
Other derived telecom indicators such as teledensity, Internet penetration, broadband penetration, benefited fully from this great surge.
“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.
“There was an increase in the volume of data consumed at the year-end December 2022 when compared with the year-end December 2021.
“The total volume of data consumed by subscribers increased to 518,381.78TB as of December 2022 from 353,118.89TB as of December 2021. This represents an increase of 46.77 per cent in data consumption within the period,” NCC reports.
Speaking further, MTN, one of the telecos launched its 5G network in 2022 and this contributed greatly to the N3.8tn revenue generated by the commission. This is because 5G network which delivers faster speed than 4G, is the reason why Nigerians consume more data because the faster the network speed, the more data consumed.
While telecommunication operators recorded N3.2tn revenue in 2021, it had 18.7% increase in 2022 and that’s quite commendable.
The predominant network operators in Nigeria are basically MTN, Globacom, Airtel and 9mobile. The operators has the highest revenue share (86%) in the industry.
This means that, in the 2022 report analysis, the above mentioned network operators produced N3.3tn for the industry, while others; Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Value Added Service (VAS) providers, and fixed wired operators, recorded about N500 billion collectively.
On expenditure, it is also recorded that the telecommunication companies made the lowest spending ever, despite the rise in operating cost as a result of inflation and the forex volatility.
Industry statistic reveals that, all the operators out together, only spent the sum of N785.7 billion on CAPEX in 2022. ‘This represents a 30% decrease in CAPEX when compared with the N1.1 trillion spent in 2021.”
Meanwhile, the operation cost was inflated by 17.6% in the year. Compared to the N1.7 trillion spent in 2021, the operators spent N2 trillion on their operations in 2022.