Despite T2’s rebranding from 9mobile, 2,725 mobile subscribers switched networks between August and October 2025, according to the Nigerian Communications Commission’s most recent Mobile Number Portability data.
According to the data, 890 subscribers left T2mobile in October 2025, 724 in September, and 1,111 in August. Only 61 subscribers joined the network during the same three months, resulting in a net loss of 2,664 customers for T2. The data demonstrates that the rate at which users are leaving the operator has not yet decreased as a result of the rebrand. In October 2025, 890 customers left T2 alone, while 289 left Airtel, 193 left Globacom, and 225 left MTN.
T2 was responsible for over half of all recorded exits that month, with 1,597 subscribers leaving all networks. Since the beginning of the year, the trend has remained steady. T2 remained far ahead of other operators in 2025 thanks to outgoing porting, which keeps track of how many subscribers leave a network while keeping their phone numbers. With 6,716 subscribers departing in January, 3,817 in February, 1,992 in March, 5,042 in April, 3,863 in May, and 3,372 in June, the trend started off strongly at the beginning of the year.
Continuing, with 646 subscribers leaving in July, 1,111 in August, 724 in September, and 890 in October, the departures slowed but were still substantial in the second half of the year. From the other direction, the incoming data presents the same narrative. Only a small number joined the network during the year, while thousands departed. Just 26 subscribers switched to T2 in October 2025, while 937 joined MTN, 357 switched to Airtel, and 277 switched to Globacom. Twenty and fifteen subscribers, respectively, joined T2 from other networks in September and August.
Following a pattern observed since January, there were only 20 new port-ins for T2 in September and 15 in August. On the other hand, MTN continuously drew the most incoming ports throughout the year. Overall, only 87 subscribers joined the network between January and October 2025, while 28,173 ported out of T2, indicating ongoing customer discontent despite the new brand identity.
The NCC’s monthly reports are frequently monitored as a gauge of consumer sentiment in the telecom sector, and mobile number portability enables customers to move networks without altering their phone numbers. Reports available to BrandSpur telecom and IT news desk revealed in August 2025 that Nigerian telecom provider 9mobile changed its name to T2 as part of a calculated move to regain market share, broaden its customer base, and step up competition in the nation’s rapidly developing digital economy.
The move was part of the company’s four-phase recovery plan, which was introduced after Lighthouse Telecoms, led by investor and businessman Thomas Etuh, acquired 9mobile in 2023. The plan’s four phases are Stabilisation, Modernisation, Transformation, and Growth. In July, the operator signed a historic three-year national roaming agreement with MTN Nigeria after reorganising its board and overhauling its leadership team.
The agreement, the first of its kind in the industry, has improved coverage, capacity, and service quality in regions where 9mobile’s own network had been constrained by enabling 9mobile subscribers to roam freely on MTN’s national network.
Bosun Tijani, the Minister for Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, applauded the rebranding but urged the business to turn it into tangible service enhancements. He stated: “Let this rebrand be more than a change of colours or new logo.”
He went on to call for a “renewed commitment to innovation, to service excellence and to the millions of Nigerians whose lives and businesses depend on your network every single day.”
To increase network capacity and promote digital inclusion, MTN Nigeria Communications Plc obtained permission from the Nigerian Communications Commission to lease frequency spectrum from T2 Mobile Limited, formerly 9Mobile, by September 2025, according to a report by The PUNCH.
The telecom behemoth stated that the lease agreement, which goes into effect on October 1, 2025, covers 5 MHz frequency division duplex in the 900 MHz band and 15 MHz FDD in the 1800 MHz band in a notice to the Nigerian Exchange Limited and the investing public. The agreement will be in effect for the first three years. The spectrum lease, according to the company, is essential to its national roaming agreement with T2 Mobile because it will allow MTN Nigeria to use its infrastructure to efficiently handle the increased network traffic from T2’s customer base.
It further stated that the action demonstrates its dedication to industry cooperation, infrastructure sharing, and the overarching objective of expanding digital access nationwide. Nonetheless, T2 continuously topped the industry in outgoing porting activity throughout the year, according to NCC data.
