January 15, 2025
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January 15, 2025

Telecoms operators earn N5.3tr in revenue, adds 14% to GDP in 2023

By Upfrontdigital News 0 3 Views

 

Toriola, MTN CEO

By Sola Balogun

TELECOMMUNICATIONS operators in Nigeria earned N5.3 trillion in revenue from their service offerings in the country in 2023.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), which revealed this in the 2023 year-end performance report, titled: ‘2023 Subscriber/Network Performance Report,’ released yesterday, listed the operators to include the GSM players, which earned N4 trillion; Fixed wired, N273, 010, 222.21; Internet Service Providers (ISPs), N89, 806, 249, 295.90; Value Added Service Providers (VAS), N14, 559, 978,522.80; Collocation and Infrastructure Sharing players, N1.14 trillion and others, N41, 841,310, 710.39.

The report revealed that active subscribers also increased from 222, 571, 568 subscriptions in 2022 to 214,713, 710 as of December 2023 with subscribers’ data consumption exceeding 713 terabytes.

According to NCC, the industry’s contributions to the nation’s GDP rose to 14 per cent from 13.55 per cent within the period under review.

NCC EVC, Maida

The telecoms market witnessed a rise in all financial segments of the market with CAPEX topping N990, 550,601,501.73, representing domestic investments, while operating cost among telecoms operators in the country was N3, 158, 403, 767, 328.48.

With reference to figures from the Central Bank of Nigeria, the report stated capital inflow in the form of foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Nigerian telecoms sector in 2023 was approximately $134,754, 819.27 against $399, 905, 531. 38 as of 2022.

Across the telecoms market, the number of active subscribers grew from 222, 571,568 subscriptions in 2022 to 224,713, 710 active voice subscriptions as of December 2023, representing an increase of 2.14 million subscriptions and 0.96 per cent growth in active subscriptions year-on-year.

The NCC report noted that the increase in the operators’ subscriber base was attributed to a number of reasons, which included subscriber loyalty, promos, aggressive consumer acquisition drive and competitive product offerings across all the networks.

The subscription growth was attributed to a mix of factors, including increased data consumption, subscriber growth and substantial investments in infrastructure by operators.

“The operators attributed the increase in subscriber base to high volumes of subscriber activation and reactivation drive of efficient customer retention management strategies and an increase in new subscriber additions within the period under review,” the report noted.

Telecoms Mast

During the year, teledensity declined, a development the NCC attributed to its reflection of adjustments in population estimates. Teledensity was 103.61 per cent in 2023 as against 116.60 per cent recorded in 2022, which indicated a decrease of 11.10 per cent in teledensity as of December 2023.

“The decrease in teledensity was as a result of applying the projected population information derived from the National Population Commission (NPC) as at year 2022. NPC projection of Nigeria’s population of 216,783,381 as of 2022, replacing the previously used 2017 projection of 190 million people affected by this indicator.”

The number of Internet subscribers also rose significantly, reaching 163.8 million by the end of 2023, up from 154.8 million in the previous year, an increase of 5.81 per cent.

The growth is indicative of the rising demand for mobile data services, which saw total data consumption soar by over 713 terabytes, a remarkable increase of 37.58 per cent compared to 518 terabytes in 2022.

The telecoms growth has been bolstered by substantial investments in infrastructure. The NCC reported that capital expenditure for the industry reached approximately N990.6 billion in 2023, up by 26.06 per cent from the previous year. Operating costs also rose significantly, totaling N3.2 trillion, an increase of 50.92 per cent.

Telecoms providers have expanded their infrastructure significantly, with a total of 39, 356 towers and 137,392 base stations deployed across Nigeria as of December 2023. The deployment of fibre cables reached 83,254 kilometres, enhancing network capacity and reliability.

 

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