NCC says Mobile Network Operators earnings soared in 2020

Data from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has shown that Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) earned N2.26 trillion higher than the N2.019 trillion recorded in 2019 – an increase of 12.33 percent of total revenue from network operators in the country.

The report however revealed that Foreign Direct Investment (FDIs)) into the Nigerian telecoms industry in 2020, declined from $942.9 billion recorded in 2019 to $417. 5 billion in 2020 .

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), which disclosed this in the 2020 Subscriber/Network Data Report released yesterday, said details of the data were contained in reports from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

Operating Cost Slumps

MNOs’ operating costs dropped from N1.415 trillion in 2019 to N1.395 trillion a year after. This showed a slight decline of 1.46 per cent from the figures reported in 2019.

According to the NCC, the reduction in operating costs may have resulted from more efficient CAPEX.

The data showed that as of 2020, total outgoing local and national traffic was 150,825,830,687.40 minutes, while total incoming calls were 151,871,687,402.67 minutes.

MTN had the highest total outgoing and incoming traffic of 103,531,547,686 and 105,473,566,557 minutes respectively in 2020.

Conversely, total outgoing mobile international traffic was 453,202,089.27 minutes, while incoming to mobile was 717,166,679.72. MTN also reported the highest outgoing traffic of 270,177,167 and the highest incoming traffic of 264,977,868.6 for the period under review.

In the areas of Short Messages Sent (SMS), NCC puts the total national SMS both sent and received as of December 2020 at 17,364,524,490.02. This is a decline of (43.6 per cent) from that of the total SMS sent and received in the year 2019 that stood at 30,769,238,164.56 SMS.

There was a 29.4 percent increase in the number of messages sent out in the year 2020 compared to 2019. Conversely, the year 2020 count of incoming SMS declined by 62.6 percent higher than that of 2019. MTN recorded the highest count of SMS received (6,290,889,268) in 2020, the highest count of SMS sent (6,100,543,865) within the period under review.

The total number of international SMS sent as of December 2020 was 57,566,961 while the total number of SMS received was 229,173,132.

Assets Value

The telecoms regulator stated that the total value of assets reported by the MNOs increased from N2.92 trillion in 2019 to N3.44 trillion one year after, representing an increase of 18.81 percent increase in the value of assets reported in the previous year.

According to NCC, at the end of last year, the service reported a total CAPEX of N404.8 billion as against the N339.7 billion invested in 2019.

NCC said the global pandemic altered the way and manner business activities were hitherto carried out globally.

Meanwhile, 2020 witnessed a significant surge in data usage. That perhaps reflected the industry performance for the year, which challenged the global telecoms industry generally and Nigerians particularly.

The telecoms regulator informed that the number of Internet subscribers increased from 135.7 million as of March 2020 to 154,437,623 Subscriptions as of November 2020 representing an increase of 13.77 percent.

Data usage also increased from 147,537.52TB to 196,163.42TB within the same period. Broadband penetration continued to increase within the year 2020 reaching a peak of 45.93 percent.

NCC/Guardian/Hauwa Abu