The latest industry statistics from the Nigerian Communication Commission have shown that the number of mobile subscriptions in Nigeria grew by 23.48 million from January to November 2022.

This translates to a total number of 218.61 million mobile subscriptions in the country.

MTN remains the largest contributor to mobile subscriptions with 86.44 million subscriptions, followed by Globacom with 59.95 million subscriptions.

Airtel has 59.38 million mobile subscriptions, while 9mobile has 12.84 million. According to telecommunication companies, the reason for sustained growth in mobile subscriptions can be linked to a restriction on outgoing calls on SIMs that have not been linked with their National Identification Numbers.

Recall that the Federal Government had asked all telcos to enforce compliance with its National Identification Number-Subscriber Identity Module policy and restrict outgoing calls on all unlinked SIMs.

Nigeria has the largest mobile population in Africa and is expected to continue to grow. GSMA, the global body for telcos, attributes mobile subscription growth to the country’s young population.