Nigeria has further consolidated its position as the largest telecom market in Africa as active telephone lines in the country increased to 165.2 million in October 2018 from 162.05 million in September, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said.
The commission made this known in its Monthly Subscriber/Operator Data published on its website on Thursday.
The regulatory body said that the lines increased by 3,180,525 from the 162,058,918 recorded in September.
It said that of the 165,239,443 active numbers, the Global System for Mobile communication (GSM) network recorded 164,865,417 in the month under review.
The GSM network had an increase of 3,179,670 customers as against 161,685,747 recorded in September.
According to NCC, Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) operators have 126,032 active subscribers in October, hence, having a decrease of 237 from the 126,269 customers in September.
It said that the Fixed Wireless Network retained the 26,865 subscribers it had in September.
NCC said that the fixed wired network had 108,997 active users in October, showing a decrease of 1,796 from the 110,793 subscribers recorded in September.
The telecommunications regulator said the Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) operators had 112,132 active users in October.
It showed that there was an increase of 2,888 subscribers, compared with 109,244 users the VOIP service providers recorded in September.
It also said that teledensity of the telecommunications industry in October was 118.03, giving an increase of 2.27 from the 115.76 recorded in September.
Teledensity is defined as the number of active telephone connections per one hundred (100) inhabitants living within an area.
The teledensity is calculated based on a national population of 140 million, according to the 2006 last Census Population figures.
