Amongst the 15 countries of West Africa, Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, and Ghana emerged as the biggest telecom markets in the region in 2024. This is contained in the Africa Telecom 50 Report 2024 (West Africa), a ranking of the leading telcos in West Africa, based on the most recently available data on their mobile subscriptions.
The report indicated that, with 169,044,258 mobile subscriptions as at January 31, 2025, Nigeria was the biggest telecom market in the region.
It accounted for 42.06% of the West African market of 401,868,395 mobile subscriptions as at January 31, 2025. Cote d’Ivoire followed with 42,771,201 subscriptions, and Ghana came 3rd with 38,294,564.
These top three countries accounted for 250,110,023 mobile subscriptions or 62.24% of the market in the region.
The other sizable markets in West Africa during the period under review were Burkina Faso 27,455,428 mobile subscriptions, Mali 25,607,193 subscriptions, Senegal 24,149,942, Benin Republic18,2 46,662, Niger Republic 16,097,521, and Guinea 13,300,000.
The remaining six countries in the region (Sierra Leone, Togo, Liberia, Guinea Bissau, Gambia and Cape Verde) each had a subscription base of less than 10 million.
The report also showed that MTN Nigeria remained the dominant telco in the region with 87,549,410 subscribers as at January 31, 2025, followed by Airtel Nigeria with 57,665,796 as at the same date.
Coming in the third position was MTN Ghana with 28,618,000 as at September 30, 2024. Globacom and Orange Cote d’Ivoire came 4th and 5th with 20,545,782 and 17,458,000 respectively.
As a reflection of its market dominance in West Africa, MTN Nigeria alone had more subscriptions than all the telcos of Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana combined.
Altogether, the report listed 46 MNOs, ranging from MTN Nigeria which is by far the biggest entity, to Hayo Senegal, the smallest operator in West Africa, with 28,980 mobile subscriptions as at December 31, 2024.
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While announcing the release of the Africa Telecom 50 Report 2024 (West Africa) in Abuja, Nigeria, on Monday, the CEO of Alford Conferences Limited, Mr. Frederick Apeji, explained that, “In compiling the mobile subscription figures for each of the licensed and active mobile network operators (MNOs) in the 15 countries of West Africa, we relied, first of all, on the market share data of these MNOs supplied by the telecommunications industry regulator of these countries. The telecom regulator of eight of them (Benin Republic, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Niger Republic, Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo,) have such data published on their website; making the collation for their MNOs seamless and accurate. We commend these regulators, and we encourage the seven others to take a cue from this. In those countries with no updated information by their regulator (Cape Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, and Sierra Leone), we relied on the most recent data supplied by the MNOs themselves. And when neither the regulator nor the operators have updated information on this subject, we relied on various online news websites and other online information sources.”
Apeji added that, “The most current data to rank the 46 MNOs in the West Africa section of this continental report is on the Nigerian companies: MTN Nigeria, Airtel Nigeria, Globacom and 9Mobile (January 31, 2025). The least current data is on the Gambian companies: Africell, QCell, Gamcel and Comium (December 31, 2020).”
The annual Africa Telecom 50 Report is published by REVENUE Magazine, one of the trade publications of Alford Conferences Limited. The first edition, Africa Telecom 50 Report 2023, was published in April 2024 and uploaded on our website, www.alfordevents.com/Reports. The second edition, Africa Telecom 50 Report 2024, is expected to be published in April 2025.
The purpose of the report is to use it as the basis to select the winners of Africa Telecom 50 Awards, one out of the eight award categories of World Digital Exhibition (WORLDEX), hosted annually in Abuja, Nigeria by Alford Conferences Limited.
