04 August 2023

According to data from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), in Nigeria, the number of active mobile subscribers decreased by 1% to 220.9 million in May 2023, from 223.3 million in April. Over the same period, the total number of mobile phone subscribers rose from 223.6 million to 221.1 million.

This drop in mobile subscriber base can be attributed to the performance of MTN Nigeria which saw its total number of active subscriptions drop from 88.6 million in April to 85.6 million in May. The company had to remove from its database SIM cards that were not associated with the national identification number (NIN), as required by the government.

From April to May, Globacom added 225,714 new subscribers to reach 61.2 million while Airtel added 195,923 new subscribers to reach 60.5 million. 9mobile saw the biggest gain in May, with its database growing by 257,320. This brought the total number of active subscriptions to 13.7 million, from 13.4 million in April.