33% of telecoms subscribers reside in four states, FCT

Bayelsa, Yobe, Ebonyi rank low on Internet usage

About 32.8 per cent of telecommunications subscribers in Nigeria currently reside in Lagos, Ogun, Kano, Oyo states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

Working with statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), titled: Nigerian Telecommunications Sector: Q1 2016 (Summary Report): State Disaggregated Data”, The Guardian gathered that though there were 148.7 million active voice subscription as at quarter one of 2016, the five states have 48.9 million telephone users.

Specifically, Lagos, which is the commercial nerve centre of the country controls 12.8 per cent (19.04 million) of call subscribers. Ogun is second with 8.53 million subscribers (5.7 per cent); Kano is third with 7.81 million telephone users, which is about 5.25 per cent. Oyo state is fourth on the chart, having 7.53 million subscribers or 5.06 per cent; Abuja is in the fifth position with 6.03 million subscribers (4.05 per cent).

The statistics showed that Rivers state, which is sixth on the chart, has 5.84 million (3.93 per cent) call subscribers. NBS observed that all the top five states with respect to active subscriptions had total subscribers in excess of their official population number as provided by the Nigerian Population Commission, except for Kano and Rivers states, whose population figures exceeded the number of active voice subscribers at the end of Q1 2016.

The statistics however, observed that Bayelsa (1.11m), Yobe (1.40m), Ekiti (1.42m) and Ebonyi (1.43m) had the smallest number of active subscribers as of Q1.

Further analysis showed that Lagos was the dominant market for all the active voice telecommunications companies accounting for 10.05 per cent of MTN total voice subscribers, followed by Ogun, Kaduna and Rivers respectively.

For Globacom, Lagos is also a dominant market for the Otunba Mike Adenuga Jr owned telecommunications outfit with 10.03 per cent penetration, followed by Oyo, Niger, Ogun and FCT respectively. Airtel, a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel of India and onwed by Sunnil Bharti Mittal has 16 per cent market dominance in Lagos followed by Ogun, Kano and Oyo states. Etisalat enjoys 19.1 per cent voice subscription followed by Ogun, Kaduna and Rivers states respectively.

In terms of data (Internet) subscriptions, though there are 92.4 million subscribers as at end of Q1, Lagos accounted for 12.62 million (13.65 per cent), followed by Ogun state with 5.62 million subscribers (6.09 per cent); Oyo state is third with 4.90 million subscribers; Kaduna and Kano states have 4.23 million and 4.13 million Internet users respectively.

On the other hand, Yobe, Bayelsa, Ebonyi states had the smallest number of active Internet subscriber with 0.69 million; 0.73 million and 0.79 million users respectively.

Lagos also maintained the dominant market for all the active Internet telecommunications companies accounting for 11.34 per cent of MTN total Internet subscribers (followed by Ogun, Kano and Rivers respectively); 10.36 per cent for Globacom (followed by Oyo, Niger, Ogun in that order: 16.95 per cent for Airtel (followed by Kano, Kaduna and Rivers respectively) and 20.27 per cent for Etisalat (followed by Ogun, FCT and Kaduna respectively).