Nigerians exchange 19.8b local SMS as operators earn N79.3b in 2021
Only three per cent postpaid customers served by telecoms sector
STATISTICS from the Nigerian Communications Commission ( NCC) has revealed that in 2021, subscribers to telecommunication services in the country exchanged 19.8 billion Short Message Service ( SMS).
This was an increase of 14.13 per cent from the total SMS sent and received in year 2020, which stood at 17.4 billion.
NCC said there was a 15.1 per cent increase in the number of SMS sent in year 2021 compared to 2020. Conversely, the 2021 count of incoming SMS also increased 16.63 per cent higher than that of 2020.
The telecoms regulator disclosed this in the 2021 Subscriber/ Network Data
Annual Report released yesterday. Specifically, the report shows that SMS sent totaled 9.46 billion, while messages received were 10.6 billion.
In Nigeria, the NCC pegs N4 uniform charge for all domestic off- net SMS. Using the N4 uniform charge, which is usually initiated on SMS sent, it can be deduced that operators earned N79.3 billion through that process.
Further, in 2021, MTN recorded the highest count of SMS received and sent, which stood at 8.23 billion and 7.88 billion respectively. Airtel subscribers sent 1.27 billion and received 2.1 billion. Globacom users sent 3,340 and received 61.7 million. 9mobile had 305 million messages sent on its platform and received 304 million. Smile Communications customers sent 265,176 and received 1,023,489, while NTEL witnessed two million sent SMS and 2.1 million received. M
EANWHILE, the total number of international SMS sent as at December 2021 was 63,009,474 while the total number of SMS received was 340,655,884. Here, Airtel recorded the highest count of incoming SMS ( 276,829,710) while MTN recorded the highest count of SMS sent ( 42,444,130).
Specifically, MTN had 42.4 million sent SMS and 17.7 million received. 171,002 messages were sent on
Globacom, while the network received 1,482,316. Subscribers to Airtel sent 18,560,081 and received 276,829,710. 9mobile received 44,433,452 and sent 1,831,546. For Smile Communications, 2,715 left the network, while 114,232 came in.