MTN, Airtel Customers Spent N986bn On Data Subscription In 12 Months

Customers of MTN Nigeria and Airtel Africa spent the sum of N986bn on data subscription in the 2021 fiscal period.

Data usage has increased over the years in Nigeria, as network service providers such as MTN Nigeria and Airtel are making huge revenue from the development.

Nigeria has a population of over 200 million people with total active data users put at 141,971,560, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Although the figure dropped by 7.99 per cent as against the 154,301,195 data subscribers recorded in the fourth quarter of 2020, the result showed that Nigerians are spending more on data compared to previous years.

Data analysed by THE WHISTLER revealed that out of the N3.1trn revenue generated by both MTN Nigeria (N1.65trn) and Airtel (N1.45trn) in the full year of 2021, income from data subscription for both companies was N986.1bn.

This translates to 31.7 per cent of the N3.1trn revenue recorded by both companies in 2021.

In 2020, data revenue for both MTN and Airtel was N682.9bn broken down into N332.37bn for MTN, while while Airtel had $842m (N350.53bn).

But in 2021, MTN data revenue rose by 35.1 per cent to N516.21bn.

MTN said its data earnings excludes roaming data which it reported under interconnect and roaming.

For MTN, the N516.21bn data revenue accounted for 32.2 per cent of the N1.65bn total revenue earned in 2021.

In the same period, Airtel recorded 34.04 per cent growth in data earnings which rose to N469.85bn ($1.12bn) from N350.53bn ($842m) by the end of 2020.

Airtel’s N469.85bn data revenue accounted for 32.3 per cent of the company’s total revenue of N1.45trn ($3.49bn) recorded in 2021.