'N4 per SMS' - MTN, Airtel, others to suffer $3bn messaging revenue loss to WhatsApp

There is a projection that over-the-top (OTT) business messaging traffic will hit 375 billion messages in 2028, and 100 billion messages in 2023 are expected to reduce the quality of SMS networks.

The development could cost telecom operators in Nigeria and elsewhere a revenue loss of over $3 billion in SMS business messaging revenue in the next five years.

Nigerian telcos earn big from SMS, others

SMS is a huge source of revenue for telcos in Nigeria, pegged at N4 per SMS by the telecom regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

According to local reports, Nigerian telecom users spent about N3.3 trillion on calls, data, and SMS in 2022, NCC said.

The NCC disclosed this in its 2022 Subscriber/Network Data Annual Report.

Legit.ng reported that the total number of active subscribers rose from 195.4 million in 2021 to 222,571 million active voice subscriptions as of December 2022, an increase of 13.86% yearly.

Nigerians exchange 14 billion SMS messages in 2022

The NCC report showed that about 14.09 billion SMS messages were sent, and about 11.84 billion were received.

It was also disclosed that MTN recorded the highest number of text messages exchanged.

The report said that International SMS sent as of December 2022 was 59,571,547, while the total number of SMS received was 459,329,782.