Tekedia will publish a report tomorrow about the decay in Nigeria’s telecommunication industry. From our industry data, the telecom sector in Nigeria is under a big threat. Service has gone from bad to worst that even some people in Owerri are switching from MTN to Multilinks (is that a good plan?).
Service is poor and the telecoms are not investing because the ARPU (average revenue per user) is going lower and lower. The reality is that the paying and profitable customers are gone and finding new areas of growth is becoming a huge problem. The business of prepaid card is a commodity one and Nigerians are not ready to pay for Value Added Services (VAS).
So, we see that the telecom industry is under severe stress. The drop calls are unbearable and the signal strength is most areas is lower. No wonder, the House of Representative has asked for assessment into what is causing this problem when the Committee on Communications reconvenes.
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This is just the beginning. Tekedia thinks that most of the telecom players are not investing. They are watching their expenses because it has become tough in the nation. Airtel expected the magic in India to work, but is learning the hard way. The industry is under threat. Multilinks is gone, Starcomms trades as a junk in the Nigeria Stock Exchange. The big three are not pumping more money and service has gone down.
Mr Eddie Mbadiwe, a House member has summarized this when he said recently: ”The country needs efficient telecommunications in order to grow Nigeria’s IT and telecom sector.”. We hope someone can look at the problems and get them solved.
Mr. Idris Azizi, a telecom analyst that spoke with Tekedia from Kano noted that if the government does not save the nation from these telecom crises, the nation will reverse years of progress made in this sector. He also noted on the high cost of the service despite being sub-standard.
Tekedia will release the report tomorrow and we ask you to visit here for it.