Nigeria’s active telephone subscriptions stood at 195,108,814 in July 2026, against 150.26 million in July 2016, an increase of about 44.85 million lines, or roughly 29.8 per cent, over ten years. The figures come from the monthly industry statistics published by the Nigerian Communications Commission, the sector regulator that collates subscriber data from licensed mobile network operators.
On its own, a decade of steady growth would be an unremarkable story for Africa’s largest mobile market. What the ten year series actually shows is something less tidy: three separate contractions, one of them the single largest loss of subscriptions in the country’s telecom history, and a market that in September 2026 has still not returned to the peak it reached three years ago.
The sharpest break came in 2024. NCC data put active subscriptions at 220.72 million in July 2023 and 166.66 million in July 2024, a fall of 54.06 million lines, or 24.5 per cent, in twelve months. The commission’s own year end figures show the scale more starkly still. Active subscriptions closed 2023 at 224,713,710 and 2024 at 164,926,599, with teledensity dropping from 103.66 per cent to 76.08 per cent, a decline the commission attributed directly to the removal of SIMs not linked to a verifiable National Identification Number.
That policy dates to December 2020, when the Federal Government directed that every SIM in the country be tied to a NIN issued by the National Identity Management Commission. Enforcement, rather than the policy itself, produced the 2024 numbers. The NCC set a series of barring deadlines announced in December 2023, requiring operators to bar SIMs with no submitted NIN by 28 February 2024, those with five or more lines tied to an unverified NIN by 29 March, and those with fewer than five by 15 April. A final compliance deadline of 14 September 2024 followed, by which point the commission said more than 153 million SIMs had been linked, a compliance rate of 96 per cent, up from 69.7 per cent in January 2024.
The trough came immediately after. Subscriptions bottomed at about 154 million in September 2024, with teledensity around 71.4 per cent, before operators began reactivating verified lines. By December 2024 the figure had recovered to 164.93 million, and to 179.64 million by the close of 2025.
The recovery through 2025 was slow. Active lines moved from 166.66 million in July 2024 to 169.33 million in July 2025, a gain of just 2.67 million, or 1.6 per cent, with teledensity at 78.11 per cent. Momentum picked up afterwards. Subscriptions reached 173.54 million by September 2025, and by July 2026 had climbed to 195.11 million, an increase of 25.78 million, or 15.2 per cent, year on year. Between June and July 2026 alone, the market added roughly 2.88 million lines, rising from 192,232,120 to 195,108,814, and teledensity reached 90 per cent.
Measured against the July 2024 low, the industry has recovered about 28.45 million subscriptions. Measured against the July 2023 level, it remains roughly 25.6 million short. Whether that gap ever closes is an open question, because a meaningful share of the lines removed in 2024 were duplicate, dormant or improperly registered, and were never going to return as distinct human subscribers.
A caution is necessary for anyone using these numbers as a reference series. Teledensity figures before and after September 2023 are not directly comparable. The NCC recalculated the indicator that month using the National Population Commission’s projection of 216,783,381 people as of 2022, replacing the 190 million projection from 2017 that had been in use since 2019. That change alone pushed reported teledensity down from 115.63 per cent to 102.30 per cent in September 2023, with no change whatsoever in the underlying number of lines. The commission described the adjustment as bringing Nigeria into line with International Telecommunication Union methodology, citing its mandate under Section 89(3)(d) of the Nigerian Communications Act 2003.
Earlier volatility in the series had its own causes. Subscriptions fell from 150.26 million in July 2016 to 139.14 million in July 2017, a drop of 7.4 per cent, before the strongest expansion of the decade: a 16.3 per cent rise to 161.79 million in July 2018, followed by 179.18 million in 2019 and 199.31 million in 2020. A second contraction hit in 2021, when lines fell 5.8 per cent to 187.81 million, a period that coincided with the suspension of new SIM registrations and sales during the early phase of the NIN linkage exercise. Growth resumed with 208.97 million in July 2022 and 220.72 million in July 2023.
The July 2026 figures also mark a structural shift at the top of the market. MTN Nigeria closed the month with 100,859,578 active lines and a 51.76 per cent share, the first Nigerian operator to pass 100 million subscribers. Airtel Nigeria followed with 66,760,297 lines and 34.26 per cent, Globacom with about 23.63 million and 12.13 per cent, and T2, formerly 9mobile, with 3,613,811 lines and 1.85 per cent. Two operators therefore account for roughly 86 per cent of all active subscriptions, a concentration that carries implications for tariff competition and consumer choice.
Voice lines are no longer the most telling indicator. Mobile internet subscriptions stood at 157.27 million in July 2026, while broadband subscriptions reached 124.42 million, putting broadband penetration at 57.40 per cent. For comparison, internet subscriptions fell from 163.83 million at the end of 2023 to 139.28 million at the end of 2024, a 14.98 per cent decline, a smaller proportionate hit than voice took in the same period.