Telcos Raked in N3.856tn Revenue, Raised Active Subscribers’ Number to 222 Million in 2022

*Nigerians spent N3.3tn on calls, data

Emma Okonji

Telecommunication operators (telcos) generated a whopping N3.856 trillion as revenue in 2022 and also increased their active subscribers’ number across networks to over 222 million in the same year, according to their performance report released yesterday by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
The operators however invested over N785 billion as at December 2022, and incurred operating cost of over N2 trillion as at December 2022.  
The figures according to NCC, was a collation based on the submissions received from service providers in the industry, which included domestic investments, operating cost, revenue generation and subscribers number.

The figures, which THISDAY obtained from the official website of NCC, showed that the number of active subscribers across all networks increased from 195,463,898 subscriptions in 2021, to 222,571,568 active voice subscriptions as at December 2022. Active subscriptions increased by 27,107,670 subscriptions representing a 13.86 per cent increase in active subscriptions year on year.

The increase in the operators’ subscriber base was attributed to a number of reasons which included subscriber loyalty, promos, seasonal effects, aggressive consumer acquisition drive, and competitive product offerings across all the networks.
A breakdown of the N3.856 trillion generated revenue showed that GSM operators alone, which included MTN, Globacom, Airtel, and 9mobile, generated as much as N3.3 trillion as revenue, while Fixed Wired operators generated over N385 million and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) generated over N92 billion as revenue as at December 2022.

Also, Value Added Service (VAS) generated over N40 billion as revenue, while Collocation and Infrastructure service providers generated over N3 billon as revenue in 2022. Other telecoms service providers put together, generated over N5 billion as revenue in 2022, according to NCC.
Aside revenue generation, the NCC statistics also revealed that the telecoms sector attracted lots of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flows into the Nigerian economy in 2022, and contributed so much to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the Nigerian economy in 2022.  

According to the statistics, the capital inflow (FDI) into the Nigerian telecoms industry in 2022, was approximately $399,905,531.38, as against $753,044,446.35 as at 2021, while contribution to GDP increased from 12.61 per cent in the Q4 2021 to 13.55 per cent in Q4 2022.
The statistics further revealed that Nigeria’s teledensity increased from 102.40 per cent as at December 2021, to 116.60 per cent by December 31st 2022, while number of Internet subscribers increased from 141,971,560 subscriptions as at December 2021 to 154,847,901 subscriptions as at December 2022 representing an increase of 9.06 per cent.

Broadband Penetration also increased from 40.88 per cent as at December 2021 to 47.36 per cent as at December 2022. Similarly, Broadband subscriptions increased from 78,041,883 subscriptions in December 2021 to 90,398,960 subscriptions as at December 2022. There was also an increase in the volume of data consumed in the year end December 2022 when compared with the year-end December 2021. The total volume of data consumed by subscribers increased to 518,381.78TB as at December 2022 from 353,118.89TB as at December 2021, which represents an increase of 46.77 per cent in data consumption within the period.