N774bn spent on calls, SMS in six months

Based on an Average Revenue per User of $7 (N1,092), the active
telecoms subscribers in the country must have spent about N774.06bn on
voice calls and Short Message Services in the first half of this year.
This is going by the figures obtained from the industry regulator, the
Nigerian Communications Commission.
With 120,362,218 active subscribers, the revenue profile of the
telecoms service providers could have been boosted by over N131.4bn in
June alone; while for May, April, March, February and January when the
active lines were 120,748,754; 119,356,665; 117,281,669; 116,601,637
and 114,492,384, respectively, the telecoms firms were estimated to
have made about N131.9bn, N130.3bn, N128.1bn, N127.1bn and N124.8bn,
respectively.
The ARPU is a financial performance benchmark in the telecomsindustry
that measures the average monthly or yearly revenue generated by the
Global System for Mobile Communications, CodeDivision Multiple Access
and fixed telephone operators in a particular country.
Nigeria's average teledensity was 84.27 per cent from the subscriber
data provided by the NCC for the first six months of the year.
Teledensity is the percentage of connected lines in relation to the
population at a given period of time, and its growth is proportionate
to the growth in the subscriber base.
Based on an ARPU of $7 also, the active telecoms subscribers inthe
country were estimated to have spent about N379.8bn on voice calls and
SMS in the first quarter of this year.
The average teledensity for the period was 82.9 per cent from
thesubscriber data provided by the NCC for the first three months of
the year.
Meanwhile, the number of active telephone lines in the country fellto
120,362,218 in June, a decline of 386,536 from the 120,748,754
recorded in May, according to the latest statistics released by the
NCC.
The CDMA subscribers were the worst hit following a drop from
2,703,604 active lines in May to 2,567,177 in June.
For the GSM operators, MTN maintained its lead with 55,238,430 active
lines, followed by Globacom with 25,019,862; Airtel had 21,591,904;
and Etisalat was creditedwith 15,303,647 lines.
According to the NCC, the percentage of GSM, CDMA and fixed/fixed
wireless lines are 97.55, 2.13 and 0.32, respectively.
The teledensity also dropped from 86.25 per cent the previous month
to 85.25 per cent in June.
The industry ended 2012 with a combined subscriber base of 113.1
million, up from 95.8 million in January.
According to the NCC data, only the GSM operators contributed to the
addition in subscriber base, as the CDMA and fixed line operators
recorded declines in the first quarter.
The CDMA operators comprising Visafone, Multi-Links, Starcomms and the
dormant ZoomMobile, experienced reduction insubscriber base from 2.9
million lines in December 2012 to 2.8 million at the end of January
2013.
In view of this, telephone service subscribers, who had increased from
95,886,714 in December 2011 to 113,195,951 in December 2012, would
have spent N2.14tn on mobile services, particularly voice calls
between January 2011 and December 2012.
While a little over N1tn was spent on telephone services in
2011,subscribers spent N1.14tn on the services in 2012.
[Punch]