New figures from Nigeria’s telecom regulator, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), for August 2010 reveal that 74.4% of Nigeria’s connected phone lines are active. Even though Nigerian operators report 110,147,519 connected lines for all Mobile (GSM and CDMA) and Fixed Wired/Wireless lines, only 81,931,223 are active.

Looking at the figures, there are 95,718,928 connected Mobile (GSM) lines, 11,706,269 connected Mobile (CDMA)lines and 2,722,322 Fixed Wired/Wireless lines. There are 74,074,793 active Mobile (GSM) lines, 6,616,457 active Mobile (CDMA) lines and 1,239,973 active Fixed Wired/Wireless lines.

In terms of growth, relative to July 2010 figures, connected lines show GSM (4.52%), CDMA (1.48%), Fixed Wired/Wireless (0.52%) while active lines grew as follows: GSM (1.79%), CDMA (-1.16%), Fixed Wired/Wireless (3.64%). Teledensity, based on active lines, grew 0.90% over July 2010 figures.

Maybe one striking percentage will be that of CDMA growth, -1.16%, which shows that while people are subscribing more (1.48% growth in August over July figures), there were actually less active CDMA lines in August, compared to July 2010. Is this a one-time decline, or should the CDMA operators be worried?

Could this be because GSM operators are crashing call costs or because CDMA service providers are giving away too many free phone gifts that recipients don’t use? Whatever the answer is, one thing is certain about telecom adoption in Nigeria: continued month-on-month growth and a teledensity of 58.52% point to business opportunities!

Nigeria's Connected Lines

Nigeria's Active Lines

Nigeria's Teledensity