In the initial nine months of 2023, Nigerian telecom subscribers spent a minimum of N2.59 trillion on airtime and data, as per the financial reports of MTN Nigeria and Airtel Africa.
This marked a notable surge of 32.57 percent from the N1.95 trillion generated from both sources during the same period in 2022.
The substantial increase in revenue from voice and data was influenced by a surge in data subscriptions and the impact of the naira devaluation, particularly on Airtel’s earnings.
In 2022’s corresponding period, Airtel accumulated $1.41 billion from airtime and data, which, converted at the exchange rate of N461/$ at that time, totaled N647.71 billion.
Comparatively, in the same period of 2023, the company garnered $1.29 billion from these revenue streams, converted at the exchange rate of N777/$, resulting in N1.003 trillion.
For MTN, the company’s revenue growth was primarily fueled by an increase in data revenues, which saw a remarkable 36.36 percent year-on-year growth.
Conversely, voice revenues only grew by 10.64 percent, indicating a notable rise in internet usage across the country.
Commenting on this growth, MTN said, “Data revenue grew by 36.4 per cent on increased usage and data conversion in new and existing base.”
The firm stated that data usage on its network grew by 29.1 per cent in the period under review. It noted, “Data usage (GB per user) grew by 29.1 per cent to 8.6GB, and the number of smartphones on our network increased by 7.6 per cent, bringing smartphone penetration to 53.4 per cent, up 1.4pp YoY.
“Consequently, we recorded a 46.3 per cent growth in data traffic, with the 4G network accounting for 83.7 per cent of the total traffic (up 5.2pp YoY).”
On its part, Airtel recorded an increase in data usage per customer to 5.9 GB per month. The firm highlighted, “Data revenue grew by 29.3 per cent in constant currency, driven by data customer base growth of 17.4 per cent and data ARPU growth of 12.3 per cent.
“Data usage per customer increased by 23.8 per cent to 5.9 GB per month (from 4.8 GB in the prior period). Our continued 4G network rollout has resulted in nearly 100 per cent of all our sites delivering 4G services.”
Rising Internet usage, particularly due to increased video streaming, led to Nigerian telecom consumers spending a total of N3.86 trillion on telecom services in 2022.
This marked an 18.74 percent increase from the N3.25 trillion spent in 2021.
Notably, data usage in the country surged by 46.77 percent, reaching 518,381.78 terabytes in 2022, up from 353,118.89 terabytes in 2021.
This surge in data consumption has been identified as a pivotal factor driving growth in the telecom sector.
Analysts anticipate this trend to persist, projecting that data revenues will likely surpass voice revenues in the forthcoming years.
The World Bank recently attributed the growth in the ICT sector to increased consumption of data services by households and businesses, alongside a rise in subscriber numbers.
