The landscape of communication technology is constantly shifting, thus it is reasonable to think that traditional messaging services like Short Message Service (SMS) will become less popular as internet-based messaging platforms continue to proliferate. However, this is not the case.
According to a report that was just released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the largest telecoms companies in the country, such as MTN, GlobalCom, Airtel, 9Mobile, and Smile Communications, made a total of N53.6 billion in revenue from SMS in the year 2022. This figure includes both individual and group revenue.
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NCC’s latest report
According to the most recent annual report published by the NCC, a staggering 14.08 billion text messages were transmitted over these networks during the course of the previous year. This statistic translates to an astounding N53.6 billion at the standard rate of N4.00 per message delivered, demonstrating the significant revenue stream that the operators continue to receive from delivering the service.
The information also shows that in the period of just one year, there was a staggering increase of 48.8% in the amount of text messages that were traded between members. This remarkable increase resulted in a shift from 9.46 billion SMS in 2021 to an astounding 14.08 billion in 2022.
As a direct result of this, the volume of text messages received saw an increase of 11.06%, bringing the total number of SMS messages sent and received during the year to a combined total of 25.9 billion.
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Details on SMS usage
When examined more closely, the data provided by the NCC gives surprising insights into the performance of particular operators within this sector. MTN established itself as the industry leader in short message service (SMS) with 8.3 billion outbound and 8.7 billion inbound messages, which made a substantial contribution to the company’s N33.3 billion SMS revenue.
Globacom was able to capture the number two slot after a close race by sending 3.6 billion SMS messages and receiving 777.2 million of them. This resulted in a substantial increase in revenue of N14.5 billion. During this same time period, Airtel, which is the third largest operator in terms of subscriber count, reported 1.8 billion sent messages at a cost of N7.5 billion and 2 billion received messages.
9Mobile kept its presence in the market by sending out 234.8 million SMS messages (worth N93.9 million) and receiving 235 million messages. During the period under examination, Smile Communications handled a relatively low volume of communications, processing 173,607 sent messages (N694,428) and receiving 766,588 messages in total.
In addition, the operators were responsible for a combined total of 518.9 million foreign SMS in 2022, which is an indication of the sustained significance of SMS on the international arena. This included an astounding 459.3 million messages being received in addition to the 59.5 million that were sent.
