Despite the growing use of over-the-top (OTT) platforms across Nigeria’s tech space, most citizens still prefer the use of the traditional text messages platform to communicate, according to the 2022 Subscriber/Network Data Annual Report released by the Policy Competition and Economic Analysis Department of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
The report, which was sighted by TechnologyMirror revealed a sharp increase in the numbers of text messages send across the major network operators ( MTN Nigeria, Airtel Nigeria, Glo, 9Mobile and Smile) in the period under review with each of the network operators recording a massive increase both in the send and receive messages.
According the NCC report, the total text messages sent across all the sample networks was 14,086,475,222.00 while that received 11,838,035,886.00 bring the total SMS to 25,924,511,108.00.
The Total Number of national SMS both sent and received as at December 2022 was 25,924,511,108. This is an increase of 28.81% from that of the total SMS sent and received in year 2021 that stood at 20,126,551,822 SMS. There was a 48.81% increase in the number of SMS Sent in year 2022 compared to year 2021.
Conversely, the Year 2022 count of Received SMS also increased by 11.06% higher than that of Year 2021 In Year 2022, MTN recorded the highest count of SMS received and sent which stood at 8,738,690,150 and 8,323,722,485 respectively.
On the international scene, the Total Number of International SMS sent as at December 2022 was 59,571,547 while total number of SMS received was 459,329,782.
The Commission’s report stated that the Total Number of International SMS sent increased from 45,527,617 in year 2021 to
59,571,547 as at Year 2022; this indicates a 30.84% increase in SMS international received in year 2022.
Similarly, the Number of international SMS received in year 2021 increased from 340,981,507 SMS to 459,329,782 SMS as at December 2022. This translated to a 34.7% increase. Airtel recorded the highest count of incoming and outgoing SMS at 389,774,725 and 35,383,723 respectively in year 2022.
