MTN Restores Network in Kano, Katsina After Outage, Apologises to Customers

MTN Nigeria has restored network services in parts of Kano and Katsina states after an outage cut connectivity for some customers. The operator apologised for the disruption and advised subscribers still unable to connect to restart their devices.

The company did not disclose the cause of the disruption or the number of subscribers affected.

What MTN told customers

In a customer notice, MTN said: "Service Restored! We sincerely apologise for the challenges experienced today with our services in parts of Kano and Katsina States.

"The issue has been resolved, and services are fully restored.

"Still having issues? Please restart your device to reconnect. Thank you for your understanding."

Subscriber base crosses 100 million

The apology came as MTN tightened its grip on Nigeria's mobile market. Figures from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) showed the operator added 2.22 million subscribers in July, lifting its base from 98.64 million in June to 100.86 million.

That made MTN the first telecoms operator in Africa to pass 100 million subscribers in a single national market.

Nigeria's overall mobile market also expanded, adding about 2.88 million active subscriptions to reach 195.11 million, up from 192.23 million in June. MTN accounted for most of the increase.

Airtel, Glo and 9mobile trail

Airtel Nigeria ranked second with 66.76 million subscribers. Globacom followed with 23.63 million, while 9mobile had 3.61 million.

On those numbers, MTN holds about 51.7% of Nigeria's active mobile subscriptions, against Airtel's 34.3%, Globacom's 12.1% and 9mobile's 1.9%.

Total active subscriptions remain below the more than 200 million recorded before the full enforcement of the National Identification Number and Subscriber Identification Module (NIN-SIM) linkage policy. Introduced in late 2020, the policy required subscribers to link their phone numbers to their national identification numbers. Its enforcement pulled down active mobile lines across the industry.

MTN Nigeria began operations in 2001 after obtaining a GSM licence. Its parent company, MTN Group, was founded in South Africa in 1994 and operates across Africa and the Middle East.

MTN also restored its airtime and data borrowing service after weeks of disruption linked to a regulatory dispute. Eligible customers can dial *303# to borrow airtime or data within approved credit limits. Airtel and Glo had already resumed the service.

With more than 100 million subscribers, any outage now touches a large slice of Nigeria's mobile users, and an apology without an explanation leaves customers guessing about what went wrong.