Airtel Africa: Share of revenue from voice has steadily declined over the years

Revenue from voice is still the largest contributor to Airtel Africa's revenue between 2019 and 2023 however its share of the revenue has been on a steady decline. Voice went from accounting for 60.97% of the total revenue in 2018, to 46.16% in 2023. The share of revenue from data and Airtel Mobile have been on a steady rise since 2020.

Source:

Airtel Africa

Period:

2019 - 2023
HTML code to embed chart
Want a bespoke report?
Reach out
Click to copy HTML embed code
Tags
Related Insights
MTN added the most subscriptions, while Airtel recorded faster growth
  • MTN became Nigeria’s first operator to cross 100 million active subscriptions.
  • MTN added 7.8 million subscriptions between December 2025 and July 2026.
  • Airtel grew faster than MTN, despite adding fewer subscriptions overall.
  • T2 recorded the fastest growth at 11.9% over the period.
  • Nigeria’s active subscriptions rose by 15.5 million to 194.9 million.
Samsung’s mobile vendor share is particularly strong in Southern Africa
  • Samsung exceeds 50% share in 4 African countries, led by Somalia at 66.9%.
  • Its share exceeds 40% in 16 countries, including Ethiopia, South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe.
  • Southern Africa shows particularly high Samsung usage, with all five UN M49 countries above 44%.
  • Samsung’s share is much lower in major markets, including Nigeria (16.3%), Egypt (22.9%) and Ghana (24.7%).
  • Samsung holds a 32.0% share across Africa, based on mobile web traffic rather than device sales.
Apple's mobile vendor share exceeds 25% in seven African countries, led by Seychelles at 37.6%
  • Apple exceeds 25% share in 7 African countries, led by Seychelles at 37.6%.
  • Cape Verde and Mauritania follow, at 36.5% and 33.8%, respectively.
  • South Africa trails just below 25%, with a 24.8% share.
  • Nigeria’s 17.9% share is close to Africa’s 18.7% average, despite its market size.
  • These figures measure web traffic, not device sales or installed smartphone base.
Nigeria’s top 3 ISPs — Spectranet, Starlink, and FiberOne — account for a combined 63.3% of the market
  • Spectranet leads with 111,384 subscribers, ahead of Starlink's 98,642.
  • Starlink added 6,651 subscribers since December 2025, narrowing the gap to 12,742.
  • Fieldbase Services overtook ipNX for 4th place by just 18 subscribers.
  • The top three ISPs account for over 63% of Nigeria's 420,989 active subscribers.
Volume of internet data consumed in Nigeria in May 2026
  • 1.5 million TB was consumed in May 2026, the highest monthly level on record.
  • 7 million TB was consumed in Jan–May 2026, up 42.1% from the same period in 2025.
  • Jan–May 2026 usage was 88.4% higher than in 2024 and 156.3% higher than in 2023.
  • May’s monthly usage was nearly 2.6× the level recorded three years earlier.
  • The surge points to rapidly growing demand for internet-based services, content and digital activity in Nigeria.
In 2023, about 1 in 6 Nigerians were still on 3G; by 2026, that's down to about 1 in 20
  • 3G's share of Nigeria's mobile market fell from 16.5% to 5.1% between May 2023 and May 2026.
  • 4G became the dominant network, with its market share rising from 25.1% to 54.3% over the same period.
  • 2G's share declined from 58.4% to 36.1% but still accounted for more than one-third of all mobile connections.
  • 5G expanded nearly 37-fold, growing from less than 0.1% to 4.5% of mobile subscriptions.
POPULAR TOPICS
SIGN UP TO OUR NEWSLETTER
Get periodic updates about the African startup space, access to our reports, among others.
Subscribe Here
Subscription Form
A product of Techpoint Africa. All rights reserved