Nigeria - Mobile Market - Overview, Statistics & Forecasts

Synopsis

Nigeria has overtaken South Africa to become the continent’s largest mobile market with now over 70 million subscribers, and yet market penetration stands at less than 50% in early 2010. The network operators are investing billions of US$ to expand their networks and improve the quality of service in order to avoid sanctions by the industry regulator, NCC. 3G services have been launched, and increased competition comes from an array of additional players who have entered the lucrative mobile market under a new unified licensing regime. Declining ARPU levels are forcing the operators to introduce new services and transform themselves into converged broadband service providers.

This report contains a market overview and analysis, key statistics, profiles of major players and two scenario forecasts for the mobile market in 2012 and 2015.

Table of Contents

• 1. Synopsis
  
• 2. Overview of Nigeria’s mobile market
  
  • 2.1 Market analysis – 2009
    
  • 2.2 Mobile statistics
    
• 3. Regulatory issues
  
  • 3.1 GSM licence terms
    
  • 3.2 Interconnect
    
  • 3.3 International gateways
    
  • 3.4 Mobile tariffs
    
  • 3.5 Per-second billing (PSB)
    
  • 3.6 Unified licensing regime brings new competition
    
  • 3.7 Universal service
    
  • 3.8 Mobile number portability
    
  • 3.9 Central equipment identity register
    
  • 3.10 Poor quality of service
    
  • 3.11 Registration of subscriber details
    
  • 3.12 Foreign ownership
    
• 4. Major mobile operators
  
  • 4.1 MTN Nigeria
    
    • 4.1.1 Network infrastructure and coverage
      
    • 4.1.2 National backbone network
      
    • 4.1.3 Services
      
    • 4.1.4 Average revenue per user (ARPU)
      
    • 4.1.5 Recent acquisitions
      
  • 4.2 Zain/Celtel Nigeria (formerly V-Mobile and Econet Wireless)
    
    • 4.2.1 Network infrastructure and coverage
      
    • 4.2.2 National backbone network
      
    • 4.2.3 Services
      
    • 4.2.4 ARPU
      
  • 4.3 M-Tel
    
  • 4.4 Globacom
    
    • 4.4.1 Network infrastructure and coverage
      
    • 4.4.2 Fibre optic backbone network
      
    • 4.4.3 Services
      
  • 4.5 Unified service licensees
    
    • 4.5.1 Multi-Links Telkom
      
    • 4.5.2 Reliance Telecommunications Ltd (Reltel, Zoom)
      
    • 4.5.3 Starcomms Ltd
      
    • 4.5.4 Intercellular Nigeria Ltd
      
    • 4.5.5 Visafone
      
    • 4.5.6 EMTS (Mubadala, Etisalat)
      
    • 4.5.7 Jigawa State regional GSM network
      
• 5. Mobile data services
  
  • 5.1 Short Message Service (SMS)
    
  • 5.2 Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS)
    
  • 5.3 GPRS, EDGE
    
  • 5.4 Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)
    
  • 5.5 CDMA2000 1x
    
  • 5.6 BlackBerry
    
  • 5.7 M-banking, M-payment
    
  • 5.8 Mobile TV
    
  • 5.9 Interactive TV (iTV)
    
• 6. Third generation (3G)
  
  • 6.1 Licensing
    
  • 6.2 Globacom
    
  • 6.3 Zain
    
  • 6.4 MTN
    
  • 6.5 CDMA EV-DO
    
• 7. Satellite mobile
  
• 8. Forecasts – mobile subscribers – 2012; 2015
  
  • 8.1 Notes on scenario forecasts
    
• 9. Related reports
  

• Table 1 – Mobile subscribers and penetration rate – 1998 - 2010
• Table 2 – Mobile subscribers by operator, technology and annual change – September 2009
• Table 3 – MTN Nigeria ARPU – 2002 - 2009
• Table 4 – Celtel Nigeria ARPU – 2006 - 2009
• Table 5 – Starcomms total and mobility/mobile subscribers – 2005 - 2009
• Table 6 – Forecast mobile subscribers – 2012; 2015

• Exhibit 1 – Ownership battle – from EWN to Vee Networks to V-Mobile to Celtel