Daily Trust

Phone users spend N315bn monthly on calls, data

- From Omobayo Azeez, Lagos

Nigerian telecoms sector may have defied recession as the telecommun­ication companies in the country now rake in N314.921 billion every month courtesy of subscriber­s’ spending on calls and data, Daily Trust findings have shown.

Daily Trust arrived at the findings using the current active mobile subscripti­ons in the country and the subsisting Average Revenue Per User (ARPU), which refers to the financial performanc­e benchmark in the telecoms industry that measures the average monthly spending on each SIM card.

According to the latest industry report by the Nigerian Communicat­ions Commission (NCC), active SIM cards being used to access telecoms services stand at 152.8 million while ARPU, that is, average monthly revenue generated by operators from each telecoms subscriber, is estimated at around $4.5 (N2,061), with the exchange rate then at N458 to the dollar.

According to the telecommun­ications regulator, active lines included functional subscripti­ons on Global System for Mobile Communicat­ion (GSM), Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), fixed wired/wireless networks and the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) segments of the industry.

The industry statistics, updated August, revealed that Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) in Nigeria activated an approximat­ed 2.58 million lines between July and August, making the current total active subtractio­n the highest in the 14-year history of the Nigerian telecommun­ication industry.

Further analysis of the industry also showed that teledensit­y, which is the number of telephone connection­s for every hundred individual­s in the country, has also risen from 107.33 per cent in July to 109.14 per cent, also being the highest ever peaked in the country.

Industry analysts have explained that these figures suggest a saturation of SIM card subscripti­ons in the coverage areas of the mobile network operators’ facilities.

They also believe that this was caused by the fact that there is a very heavy focus and concentrat­ion of mobile telephony in key areas deemed by the industry as commercial­ly viable.

It was also gathered that the phenomenon can as well be tied to the arrival of the 5th MNO, Ntel, to join MTN, Globacom, Airtel and Etisalat in the competitiv­e deployment of telecommun­ication services in the country.

Meanwhile, fierce competitio­n among operators, who are jostling for market share, has continued to engender price war, leading to deliberate downward review of tariffs for voice and data services, as a gimmick to win subscriber­s’ loyalty.

According to the president, Associatio­n of Telecommun­ication Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Olusola Teniola, “With continued increased competitio­n, the price per Mbyte or Gb of data will fall in line with reduced ARPU rates observed in the industry.

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