The massive growth recorded in the Nigerian telecommunications space since the liberalisation of the industry which started with the return to democratic rule has started to slow down as the fate of about 15 telecommunication operating companies hang in the balance as collapse and stunted growth threaten their survival, according to The Leadership newspaper.
The latest figures released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on its website has shown that smaller telecommunication operators are gradually dying off as stiff competitive environment, inability to access sufficient funds, technology obsolesce, and poor management is wiping out the small players in the industry.
According to an NCC industry study which computed the 2013 subscriber base of all licensed telecom operators including the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) players, fixed and mobile Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) operators, Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) and data operators on Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) operators and fourth generation long term evolution (4G LTE) service providers, many of the small players are on the brink of collapse.
The Leadership reported that apart from MTN, Globacom, Airtel, Etisalat and Visafone which added subscribers to their networks in 2013, most of the other telecom service providers did not grow their subscribers in all the four quarters of 2013. Out of four CDMA mobile operators, Starcomms and Reliance Telecoms (ZoomMobile) have ceased to operate their networks thereby contributing nothing to the overall subscriber base in 2013, while Multi-Links renders skeletal services.
On voice subscription, Visafone moved from 2,138,154 in the first quarter 2013 to 2,094,785 in the second quarter and from 2,438,590 in the third quarter and ended the fourth quarter with 2,063,330. Multi-Links also saw its voice subscriber base nosedive from 207,872 in the first quarter to 151,688 and 85,050 and 50,135 in the third and fourth quarters respectively.
The fixed/fixed wireless telecom operators who did not add a single subscriber to their network throughout 2013 include Starcomms Limited, Multilinks Telkom, Reliance Telecoms (Zoom),Intercellular Nigeria Limited, VGC Communications which is owned by MTN, MTS 1st Communications, Disc Communications, WiTEL and O’Net (Odua Telecom).
Others are Rainbownet Limited, Monarch Communications, XS Broadband (also owned by MTN), Webcom, IPNX and NITEL. Globacom fixed wireless network recorded 6,810 6,933 in the third and fourth quarter 2013 respectively. The fixed/fixed wireless operators saw their subscriber base move from 405,625, 382,678, 362,392 and 360,537 in each of the quarters of 2014. They started with a teledensity of 5.66 per cent and ended with 0.51 per cent.
According to the NCC, only 57,840,299 out of the 121,888,014 million active subscribers on the GSM networks used Internet data. The Internet subscriber data released by the NCC shows that 64,047,715 subscribers have yet to use data on the Internet as at end of 2013.
MTN Nigeria retained its lead in the telecoms market with more than eight million active lines, more than the combined subscribers of its two rivals—Globacom and Airtel Nigeria.
A key highlight of the NCC market information is that Globacom recorded 25,019,862 active connections as against 21,591,904 posted by Airtel Nigeria, indicating that the former was able to rake over 3.4 million active lines to outstrip its competitor by the middle of last year. MTN Nigeria still remains the market leader with 55,238,430 active lines.
MTN also left no doubt as to the success of its market ramp up campaign, as it recorded an impressive 7.69 per cent growth within the quarter, though dropping from nine per cent in the preceding quarter of mid-year 2013.