Active mobile subscriptions in Nigeria declined to 223.3 million in April 2023 

According to the NCC, Mobile subscriber numbers in Nigeria fell by 1% in April to 223.3 million from the 225.8 million reported in March, mostly as a result of a sizable fall in MTN’s active subscriber database.
However, during the same time period, Glo, Airtel, and 9mobile had an increase in their subscriber counts, countering some of the overall declines.
The discontinuation of SIM cards not associated with the National Identification Number (NIN), as required by the government, was mainly blamed for the fall in subscriptions; this was especially true for MTN.

According to the NCC’s figures, MTN, the largest operator by subscriber count, contributed to the fall of the entire industry database by losing 2.8 million subscribers. Its overall number of active subscriptions increased from 91.6 million in March 2023 to 88.6 million as a result.

Glo did note a 128,017 rise in new subscribers over the month. By doing this, the operator was able to keep its ranking as the operator with the second-highest number of subscribers in April 2023. Glo’s overall subscriptions increased from 60.7 million in March of this year to 60.9 million as a result of the new activations on the network.

Additionally, Airtel reported a slight gain in their database of subscriptions for the month of 3,285, bringing the total to 60.33 million from 60.32 million in March.
The biggest gainer in April was 9mobile, whose database expanded by 262,737. Its overall number of active subscribers increased from 13.1 million in March to 13.4 million in April as a result.