By Emmanuel Elebeke
Abuja – The latest Telecommunications Special Edition poll results released by NOIPolls Limited have revealed that a higher proportion of Nigerians use 2 phone lines either registered under one network provider or under two different ones.
This trend is said to has been consistent from 2012 to 2014.
However, a 5-point reduction in the proportion of Nigerians in this category was observed from 2012 to 2013 and 3-points increase in 2014.
An assessment of the mobile network used by Nigerians placed MTN as the highest used network in the past two years (2012-2013) and even in the present times; although subscription to this provider has consistently declined within this period.
According to the MTN group, this decline has been mainly due to ‘regulatory restrictions’ imposed by the telecoms watchdog and growing spate of unrest by Boko Haram, especially in the Northern part of Nigeria.
Other Networks used by Nigerians in the order of higher subscribers include; Airtel (45%), Etisalat (33%), Glo (28%) and Visafone (1%).
In line with this, the proportion of Airtel subscribers which seemed steady from 2012 to 2013 at (39%), picked up by 6-points in 2014 (45%), thus, making it the only network that has seen a considerable growth in the proportion of its users.
This increase may have been driven by the discovery of the cheaper tariffs offered by this network compared with other networks.
Further findings on the usage of phone lines revealed a higher proportion of subscribers (76%) use MTN as their main line; this could have been as a result of a first mover advantage earned by this operator.
In addition, 15 per cent of mobile network subscribers indicated Airtel as their main line, 5 per cent indicated Glo, while 4 per cent of subscribers use Etisalat as their main line.
An assessment of the services provided by network providers revealed that a higher proportion (64%) of mobile phone users across all networks are getting value for money from their main network provider through the ‘quality of network services’ (27%), ‘bonus offers’ (25%) and ‘cheaper tariff’ (23%) among others.
Furthermore, the report ranked MTN highest for providing best services in Nigeria in 2014, followed by Airtel and Etisalat (68%, 17% and 11% respectively) and to further improve the quality of services of Network providers, subscribers in the study suggested the ‘reduction of tariff’ (30%) as a measure for improving the quality of telecommunication services, while capitalizing on ‘wider network coverage’ (22%) and ‘improved network services’ (22%).
Key Findings
Use of Multiple phones
Findings from the current poll highlights that a higher proportion of Nigerians use two phone lines. These lines could either be registered under one network provider or under 2 different ones.
The use of 2 or more lines according to the findings could probably be driven by the need to overcome certain issues associated with mobile network, which could range from accessibility to cost. In addition, 33 per cent of Nigerians use one line, 17 per cent use 3 lines, while 7 per cent confirmed they use more than 3 lines.
From the information gathered, the use of 2 phone lines seems like the norm across all geo-political zones, except for the North-West zone, where the higher proportion of the residents use one phone line.
The North-East zone (33%: 22%+10%) and the South-West zone (31%: 23%+8%) accounted for the highest proportion of respondents who use 3 or more phone lines
A 3-year trend analysis on the usage of phone lines in Nigeria revealed a consistent trend of 2 phone line usage by Nigerians from 2012 to 2014.
However, there was a 5-point reduction in the proportion of Nigerians in this category from 2012 to 2013 and 3-points increase in 2014.
More findings revealed that more residents from the North-East zone use more than 3 phone lines in 2014, compared with the past 2 years with a significant increase of 9-points from 2013 (1%) to 2014 (10%).
A view of the trend on phone usage across age-groups revealed that Nigerians within the age-group of 18-21 years have increasingly adapted the use of 2 phone lines over the years; from 2012 where it was lowest to 2014 (41%) with the highest record.
It was indicated that this increase in this category of Nigerians stimulated a drop in the use of 1 line by this age-group.
The report further showed that respondents aged 61+ have continuously reduced the use of 3 or more lines to settle for the use of 1 to 2 lines from 2012 to 2014http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/11/nigerians-use-one-network-report/

It's there in case of necessity, Reliability is not a trait of these Service providers

People use more than one phone line so as to get the awufs accross all those platforms available. Tariff rates are pretty high and data plans aren't as cheap as compared to other neighbour countries. Get 12mnths extra 100mb frm Etibaba, 1Gb for 2k on Glo, etc. Then u minimise cost and get beta value.