Indication at the weekend was that the telecom industry’s contribution to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased to over 14.30 per cent as of the second quarter of 2020, according to data obtained from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
In financial value, the 14.30 per cent translates to N2.272 trillion in Q2, 2020. The contribution of the sector as at December 2019 was 10.60 per cent
This came as the country has recorded over $70 billion investments from the sector as at the end of 2020.
Active mobile voice subscribers increased from 184 million in December, 2019 to 208 million by October, 2020. This represents an additional 24 million active mobile lines accessed by Nigerians across mobile networks from December, 2019 to October, 2020.
Accordingly, teledensity (the total number of telephone lines per hundred people in an area) increased from 96.76 per cent in December, 2019 to 108.94 per cent by October, 2020.
NCC’s regulatory activities also resulted in increased connectivity in the country. From 126 million in December, 2019, Internet subscriptions rose impressively to 152.9 million as of October, 2020.
In the same vein, broadband (i.e. high-speed Internet) penetration maintained an upward swing to 45.93 per cent in October, 2020, up from 37.80 per cent in 2019.
Meanwhile, Mobile Number Portability (MNP) service continued to offer wider options of service for telecoms consumers in 2020. In the year under review, 158,128 telecom consumers ported their lines between January-October, 2020, as against over 120,000 lines that were ported in 2019.
We learnt that the increase in MNP service usage is due to increased public education and awareness by the Commission’s head office and its zonal offices, as they intensified awareness on the availability, usage and benefits of MNP across geo-political zones. (Mobile number portability is a service introduced by NCC on mobile networks which allows telecoms consumers to switch from their current network to another preferred network, without changing their mobile number, when they feel a need to do so).
Similarly, the Commission was able to successfully resolve over 98 per cent of the total consumer complaints received from telecoms consumers via the NCC Toll-Free Number 622, NCC Consumer Portal, social media platforms and written complaints. Subscriptions by telecoms consumers to the NCC Do-Not-Disturb (DND) 2442 service reached over 30 million in 2020 compared with 22 million in 2019.