BiAnnual Airtime Purchase almost in Trillions - in Naija Ile

Mobile telephone subscribers in the country spent N593bn on calls between January and June, 2012.

This is based on the widely acceptable Average Revenue Per User figure of N1,000 per month for the Nigerian telecoms industry amid a growing subscriber base.

The ARPU is a financial performance benchmark in the telecoms industry that measures the average monthly revenue generated by operators from each customer.

With the active Global System of Mobile communications and Code Division Multiple Access lines surpassing the 94 million mark in January to well over 101 million in June, subscribers must have spent at least N593bn on making calls in the first half of the year.

Specifically, data from the Nigerian Communications Commission revealed that there were over 95 million active mobile subscribers in January, which means that over N95bn must have been spent on calls in that month alone based on the current ARPU.

The subscriber base increased to 96 million in February, with a whopping sum of N96bn expectedly spent on mobile telephony services.

With over two million additional users pushing the subscriber base to 98 million in March, an estimated N98bn was spent on calls in the month.

This grew to N100.6bn in April, when the subscriber base crossed the 100 million mark.

Punching It