Nigerian telecoms market heats up

A report compiled by Pyramid Research reveals that telecom infrastructure development in Nigeria has encouraged competition in the countries telecommunications market. Expansion in areas such as undersea cables and the Nigerian Communications Commission’s (NCC) Internet exchange point, has encouraged competition and facilitated the expansion of data networks to make them more accessible and affordable to the public.

“Opened Markets and New Infrastructure Stoke Competitive Fires” offers a precise profile of the country’s telecommunications, media and technology sectors based on proprietary data from Pyramid’s research in the market. It provides detailed competitive analysis of both the fixed and mobile sectors, tracks the market shares of technologies and services and monitors the introduction and spread of new technologies.

“The competitive landscape of Nigeria’s telecom sector has forced operators to rollout new infrastructure to improve coverage and quality, which has resulted in a surge of subscription growth and usage,” says Majd Hosn, Associate Research Analyst at Pyramid. “Pyramid expects growth of total market services revenue to continue over the next five years at a 5.9 percent CAGR. Pay-TV, fixed VoIP, broadband Internet and mobile data are anticipated to be the fastest-growth segments,” he adds.

“Projects, such as the MainOne undersea cable, have created a strong surge in the quality of the infrastructure backbone,” indicates Hosn. “This will translate into increased usage of connectivity, expected to reach 33.8 percent market share in 2015, and infotainment, expected to have a 21 percent mobile data revenue share in 2015,” he explains. The infrastructure sharing debate is also ongoing in Nigeria, and Pyramid expects to see some regulations and actions taken to expedite it. “Operators will be able to use less of their expenditure on infrastructure development and more on implementing strategies to expand their customer base and ARPS, such as mobile broadband and value-added services.”

The NCC’s plan to increase the competition in the telecom sector has been successful. “The addition of marginal lower-spending subscribers to the market, and increased competition among existing GSM- and CDMA-based operators, will continue to drive ARPS downward,” notes Hosn. “Number portability in 2011 is expected to further increase the competition and allow for a reshuffling of market shares. This could represent a struggle to keep churn rates low but also an opportunity to attract customers from competitors,” he adds.

You can download an excerpt of this report here: http://www.pyr.com/downloads.htm?id=18&sc=PRN032211_CIRNIG or purchase the report here: http://www.pyramidresearch.com/store/CIRNIGERIA.htm?sc=PRN032211_CIRNIG.

By Angela Meadon