Because Starlink terminals are “sold out” in Lagos, Abuja, and Port-Harcourt, Nigeria’s three largest cities, residents are no longer able to order them.
Warri in Delta State and Benin City in Edo State are two more Nigerian locations where Starlink has sold out. This is in line with the company’s website’s availability map accessed by BrandSpur telecom and IT news desk.
When placing an order, entering any address from any of the five cities also yielded a non-availability warning. When attempting to order an address in Lagos, the response appears as: “Starlink Residential is not available in your area. Enter your email below to be notified about future availability and product updates, or if Starlink is active in your market, visit our Roam page to order our mobile offering.”
Existing users are not impacted in any way when new sign-ups are suspended in certain areas. The kits are still available for purchase by Nigerians outside of the sold-out regions of the nation.
Strong demand for Starlink
Since the Space X-linked company’s official launch in Nigeria in January of last year, demand for Starlink services has skyrocketed in the country.
The local news brand discovered, however, that the demand for Starlink is not limited to Nigeria, since the business’s terminals in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, are currently sold out less than two months after officials gave the company permission to operate in the southern African country.
The only two African countries where Starlink terminals have sold out are Nigeria and Zimbabwe, per a Bloomberg story. This event coincides with an ongoing battle over price increases for oversubscriptions in Nigeria.
Following a reprimand from the nation’s telecom regulator for failing to obtain the necessary consent as mandated by law, Starlink stated on Friday that it was suspending an increase it had announced in late September. On the last day of September, Starlink stated that the cost of its monthly subscription would increase by 97%, from N38,000 to N75,000.
Additionally, the corporation raised the Starlink hardware kits for new users by 34%, from N440,000 to N590,000.
Nigeria’s increasing adoption of Starlink
When Starlink first announced its arrival in Nigeria in January 2023, it attracted a lot of attention from Nigerians who were keen to switch service providers, although its prices were higher than those of local ISPs.
People in places with inadequate internet networks are also encouraged to choose Starlink due to the widespread availability of its satellite service. In terms of the number of customers, Starlink is now among the top Internet service providers (ISPs) in Nigeria, according to data made public by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
Starlink had 23,897 users as of Q4 2023, making it the third-largest ISP in Nigeria by customer count.
There are currently fewer users than for several local ISPs that have been in business for a lot of years in Nigeria.
