NBS Q3 Report: MTN Remains Leading Telco with 65.38 million Subscribers in Nigeria

The Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has released its Q3 latest Telecommunications Data Report for 2019. The data was provided by the Nigerian Communications Commission and verified by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The report revealed that MTN remains the leading Telco with over 65.38 million subscribers.

Globacom followed with 49.2 million and Airtel with 48.9 million subscribers. 9mobile had 15.3 million by the end of the quarter. MTN maintained its position with only 0.29% increment, Globacom had 5.6% while 9mobile gained a 3.95% subscribers.

The data shows that the total number of voice subscribers in the third quarter was 179,176,930 people; a 10.58% increase year on year from Q3 2018. MTN had the highest number of subscribers in terms of voice and internet subscriptions. MTN was followed by Globacom, Airtel, and Etisalat. For internet subscription, it was followed by Airtel, Globacom and Etisalat for voice subscription respectively.

Similarly a total of 123,163,027 subscribers were active on the internet against 103,514,997 in Q3 2018. This represents a 0.40% quarter on quarter growth and 18.98% year on year in internet subscription.

Lagos state had 23 million subscribers, the highest in terms of active voice per state in Q3 2019. Airtel had over 7 million, MTN had 6.7 million, Globacom had 6.3 million users while 9mobile had about 3.3 million subscribers. Similarly, Lagos had the highest number of active internet subscribers per state at 16.87 million. It was closely followed by Ogun State and Kano State with 7.5 million and 6.4 million subscribers each.

The NBS report also shows the number of incoming and outgoing porters in Q3 2019. MTN has 2041 incoming and 3371 outgoing porters, whereas Globacom had 791 incoming and 3145 outgoing porters. Airtel, on the other hand, had 1720 incoming and 6497 outgoing porters. 9mobile had the highest incoming porters at 9823 and 1341 outgoing porters.