… as figure hits 148.74m in Q1 2016
By Emmanuel Elebeke

Nigeria recorded about 148.74 million active voice and internet subscribers in the first quarter of 2016.

In its quarterly report on Nigerian Telecommunications Sector Q1 2016, released on Thursday, the National Bureau of Statistics revealed that the report represents the total number of active voice and internet subscribers in the 36 states of the country including the FCT at the end of the first quarter 2016 disaggregated by States.

The report showed that the number of active voice subscriptions in the country stood at 148.74 million at the end of Q1 2016, with MTN accounting for the largest share of 57.04 million (38%), followed by Glo with 34.60 million subscribers (23.2 %) and Airtel with 33.86 million (22.7%) of the total number.

According to the Statistical body, Lagos State accounted for the largest share of active voice subscribers with 19.04 million (12.8%) of the total, followed by Ogun State with 8.53 million subscribers (5.7%), Kano State with 7.81 million (5.25%), Oyo State with 7.53 million subscribers (5.06%), then FCT and Rivers State with 6.03 million (4.05%) and 5.84 million (3.93%) respectively.

It is observed that all of the top five States with respect to active voice subscriptions had total subscribers in excess of their official population number as provided by the Nigerian Population Commission, except for Kano and Rivers, whose official population figures exceeded the number of active voice subscribers at the end of Q1 2016.

On the other hand, Bayelsa (1.11 million), Yobe (1.40 million), Ekiti (1.42 million) and Ebonyi (1.43 million) had the smallest number of active subscriber as of Q1 2016.