See How Much Nigerians Spent On Airtime In Three Months

Investigations have shown Nigerian telecoms subscribers across mobile networks to have spent a whopping N767.23bn on airtime purchase from November 2018 to January 2019.

The estimated airtime spending was arrived at using the number of subscribers in the three months obtained from the Nigerian Communications Commission, and the industry’s Average Revenue per User provided by network operators.

According to the reports, Nigeria had 168.73 million active GSM subscribers from MTN, Globacom, Airtel and 9mobile, in November 2018, but rose to 172. 63 million In December, and 173.63 million, in January 2019.

Following this estimations with the telecommunications companies’ ARPU (the industry’s benchmark determined by industry players to measure the average or mean spending by telecoms consumers on airtime, which they, in turn, use to access voice and data services) amounting to $4.87 (N1490.22) per month, it was gathered that Nigerians spent N251.44bn on airtime purchase in November 2018, but increased by two per cent to reach N257.04bn in December 2018, and about N258.74bn in January this year.

It will be noted that Nigerians buy airtime through various platforms such as physical recharge card, the virtual top-up via USSD code, subscribers’ bank accounts domiciled on mobile devices, vending on web-based platforms and on Automated Teller Machines.