Nigeria Records 91% Teledensity in March 2019 - NCC

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) says it recently reviewed the computation of the country’s teledensity with the latest population figure of 190 million, as stipulated by the National Population Commission (NPoC).

The current figure was given by the NPoC marking an increase from the 140 million populations of 2006.

Telephone density or teledensity is the number of telephone connections for every hundred individuals living within an area.

Prof Umar Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman of NCC made this known in a statement on Wednesday in Abuja.

Danbatta said that following the re-alignment, also in line with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)’s calculation of teledensity, the commission arrived at a teledensity of 91 per cent by the end of March.

He said “This is just as active subscriber base for the month of March increased to 173.7 million from 173.6 million in February, 2019.

“Hitherto, teledensity in Nigeria was calculated using the 140 million population official figure of 2006 against the prevailing monthly subscriber base.”

According to him, as at February, when the 140 million population figure was last used and benchmarked against the active subscriber base of 173.6 million, the country’s teledensity stood at 124.05 per cent.

Mobile Phones

He said that the teledensity figure stood at 124.29 per cent in January with active subscriber base of 174 million.

He, however, added that from March, the commission began to use the rebased 190 million population of Nigeria, as projected by the NPoC, against the subscriber base of 176.7 million to calculate teledensity.

“With the regulatory re-alignment by the NCC, teledensity for the country as at end of March, 2019 was put at 91 per cent.

“This is based on the rebased population figure of 190 million against active subscriber base of 173.7 million,” he said.

Danbatta said the clarification on teledensity calculation became necessary to avoid misinterpretation of the re-alignment to mean a reduction in teledensity.