Telecom firms hit Nigerians with data price hike to offset losses

Wireless giants MTN and Airtel have hiked data prices in Nigeria as their earnings decline, adding to the burden of millions battling the country’s worst cost of living crisis in at least two decades.

MTN’s profit after tax fell 78.6% to N18.7 billion between July and September from the same period last year, while Airtel recorded $13 million loss during the period.

The companies increased data the rates without notifications to customers in the last two weeks, with MTN charging additional N500 across all data plans. Customers buying MTN 25 gigabytes (Gb) of data now pay N6500.

One gigabyte of Airtel data now costs N500, against N300. Spectranet, also a major internet provider in the country, increased its data rates too.

Customers buying Spectranet DoMore 150 Gb saw a N1,200 increase to N16,700, while 50Gb has risen from N7,500 to N8,250.

A representative of Spectranet told Pluboard the new price regime took effect October 18. “Yes, I can confirm that our prices have changed,” a customer agent said Monday, acknowledging there was no announcement.

The increases add to the financial burden citizens face as they grapple with Nigeria’s worst inflation and the naira’s sharp decline in decades, made worse by the government’s removal of the petrol subsidy. Inflation reached 26.72% in September.

Bumper sales

MTN and Airtel, Nigeria’s biggest mobile network operators, reported a bumper N403 billion in data sales in the third quarter of 2023.

MTN Chief Executive Officer of MTN, Karl Toriola, said increased data sales reflected increased internet use in the country.

“Our 4G network now covers 80.5% of the population, up from 79.1% in December 2022. Data usage (GB per user) grew by 29.1% to 8.6GB, and the number of smartphones on our network increased by 7.6%, bringing smartphone penetration to 53.4%, up 1,” he said.

But the revenue growth was not enough to return impressive bottom-lines for the two companies.

Airtel said its loss was driven mostly by a foreign exchange loss of $471 million. MTN’s shares dropped the most in almost three months.

The naira plunged to 993 at the official market on Monday.