Nigerian operator T2mobile, formerly known as 9mobile, has lost nearly 8,000 subscribers to mobile number portability in the year since it entered a national roaming agreement with MTN, according to new figures from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

The rebrand and the high-profile roaming arrangement with MTN were designed to tackle the operator's two biggest challenges: poor network quality and a shrinking market share. Yet one year on, neither the new name nor access to MTN's network has stopped the outflow of customers or built significant consumer recognition. Ask an average Nigerian phone or internet user about T2mobile, and the response is often a blank stare, or questions such as “Who is that?” and “Are they still in existence?”

Porting data shows continued exodus

Industry data from the NCC reveal that nearly 8,000 subscribers ported their lines away from T2mobile (9mobile) between October 2025 and August 2026. Because porting requires a subscriber to actively request a move while keeping their number, the figures capture deliberate switching decisions by users rather than passive churn.

Mobile number portability (MNP) allows subscribers to change network providers while keeping their phone lines. Within this system, MTN recorded the fewest outgoing users in the reporting period, at 2,287, followed by Airtel with 2,456 and Globacom with 2,885.

On the inbound side, T2mobile (9mobile) attracted the fewest port-ins at 196, with only Vitel Wireless lower at 142 — although Vitel Wireless's reporting period commenced in November 2025. MTN posted the largest gains through porting with 9,074 new subscribers, followed by Airtel with 3,998 and Globacom with 2,042.

Set against its 196 port-ins, T2mobile's departures left it with a net loss of more than 7,600 ported lines, and Globacom was the only one of the four major operators besides T2mobile to end the period with more port-outs than port-ins. The outflow amounts to roughly 0.2% of the operator's 3.6 million subscriber base, but it moves in the opposite direction of the market-share recovery the rebrand was intended to deliver.

The rebrand and the roaming deal

9mobile officially rebranded as T2 on August 8, 2025, with public unveiling events held in Lagos. The change followed the acquisition of a 95.5% controlling stake in 9mobile by Lighthouse Telecommunication Limited, led by Chairman Thomas Etuh.

The transition was accompanied by a three-year national roaming agreement with MTN Nigeria aimed at boosting coverage and network quality. Under the arrangement, T2mobile (9mobile) subscribers can access MTN's network infrastructure for calls, SMS, and data services in regions where T2mobile's own coverage is limited or unavailable. The deal gives the operator a route to improve service reliability without the heavy financial burden of building new infrastructure.

MTN also benefits from the agreement, gaining access to 9mobile's underutilised spectrum in the 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, and 2100 MHz bands, along with financial earnings from the roaming deal. The additional spectrum increases MTN's network capacity and quality, helping to address throttling in densely populated areas.

Clarifying the nature of the arrangement, T2mobile Chief Executive Officer Obafemi Banigbe described it as a “commercial partnership focused on operational efficiency.” He said it is neither a merger nor a coalition, but a model of “co-opetition” that balances cooperation with competition.

The national roaming agreement took effect on October 1, 2025, after receiving regulatory approval from the NCC. The three-year term keeps the arrangement in place into late 2028, leaving subsequent NCC porting and subscriber releases to show whether the operator's trajectory changes over the remainder of the deal.

Setbacks and subscriber trends

Despite additional partnerships, including a multi-million-dollar deal with Huawei to upgrade its network infrastructure, the operator took an early hit when IHS Towers asked T2mobile (9mobile) to vacate 2,576 tower sites over long-standing debts.

Since national roaming commenced in October 2025, T2mobile has gained approximately 480,000 users, compared with 11.5 million for MTN, 8.4 million for Airtel, and 1.8 million for Globacom. Only 196 of those gains came through porting, meaning the vast majority arrived outside number-portability switches. The operator's subscriber base stood at 3.6 million as of August 2026, the smallest of the four mobile network operators. T2mobile also added 55,000 internet users over the period, a performance marked by multiple highs and lows.

Mixed network quality results

The operator's network performance presents a mixed picture. A joint Quality of Experience report by the NCC and Ookla, based on real network tests conducted between June 2025 and May 2026, found that T2mobile delivered strong download speeds of 18.9 Mbps in urban areas and 10.1 Mbps in rural areas. Upload speeds, however, were affected by connection fluctuations, falling as low as 1 Mbps in urban areas against 1.3 Mbps in rural areas. Average connection delay — the time data takes to make a round trip across the network, and a figure users tend to notice most in real-time services such as video calls and online gaming — stood at 775 ms, the highest among the four operators and more than double the next-highest reading, compared with MTN's 33 ms, Globacom's 35.5 ms, and Airtel's 36 ms.

One year after the roaming deal, T2mobile (9mobile) remains far from regaining its lost glory, suggesting that an initiative beyond network sharing may be needed for the rebrand to achieve true recognition and compete on the big stage.