Nigeria’s active mobile subscriptions cross 200m in September, says NCC

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has revealed that  active subscriptions for telecommunications services across the networks of MTN, Airtel, Globacom, and T2 crossed the 200 million mark in September 2026, the highest since 2024.

According to the latest industry data, active mobile subscriptions in the country stood at 200,102,038 at the end of the month, about 3 million increase from 197.1 million recorded in August.

The last time Nigeria’s mobile subscription stood above 200 million was in April 2024 before the NCC’s NIN-SIM linkage enforcement that brought total database down to 171.8 million in May 2024.

MTN Nigeria remains the dominant force in the mobile market as it gained over 2 million new subscriptions in the month to close September with 104.6 million active connections.

With that, MTN’s share of the market now stood at 52.3per cent, leaving the other three operators to share less than 48per cent.

Airtel Nigeria also recorded 618,660 new subscriptions in the month, which brought its database to 68 million.

As the second largest operator by subscriber number, Airtel accounts for 34per cent of the market share.

Globacom also recorded a marginal increase in subscriptions for the month but remains a distant third operator with just 11.89per cent market share. The telco’s database grew from 23.5 million in August to 23.8 million in September.

For the struggling T2, things have not improved despite a recent national roaming with MTN. NCC’s data shows that the telco’s subscriptions have remained static over the last three months at 3.6 million. T2 accounts for only 1.89per cent share of the mobile market as of September 2026.

Meanwhile, active subscriptions for the internet across mobile, fixed and VOIP networks in Nigeria rose to 160.9 million in September.

This was driven largely by internet subscription on the mobile networks, which jumped from 158 million in August to 160.4 million in September.

Fixed wireless connections increased from 227,910 in August to 248,651 in September.  VoIP subscriptions declined from 226,766 in August to 223,843 in September. However, ISP data has not been updated for September.