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Top1. Introduction
The level of economic pressure that was mounted during the ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic made it very difficult to believe that some businesses can break even despite the socio-economic activities disruptions (Ibn-Mohammed et al., 2020). However, the first half of the year 2020 had recorded massive profits, amounting to N1.97 trillion for the telecommunications companies operating in Nigeria. Such huge expenditures was channelled towards subscription of telephony services particularly airtime recharges and data bundle in the initial six months of the year 2020, signifying approximately N57 billion expansion when juxtaposed to the amount of telecommunication utilities consumption during the exact interval in the previous year 2019(Eke, Magaji, & Ezeigwe, 2020). The statistics of the transactions were calculated starting with the average monthly subscribers expenditures while the profits indicated 3.73% increase in the second quarter earnings for Mobile Telecommunication Networks (MTN), Globacom (GLO), Airtel and 9mobile. The subscriber’s statistics for the month of June obtained from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) archive indicated a significant expansion from 192.3 million subscribers in the month of May to 196.4 million subscribers in June 2020, which analysts considered unlikely with the contemporaneous economic development amidst COVID-19 perfidy. They on the other hand, reasoned that the considerable increase was unambiguously associated with the nature of telecommunication services which designates those utility commodities very essential for continued human existence particularly with respect to the COVID-19 generated socio-economic downturn throughout the global sphere. Meanwhile, Guardian already had informed in January that telecommunication merchants received approximately N2.78 trillion in 2019 from airtime distribution(Adeola-Omole, 2020). Surprisingly, the COVID-19 induced lockdown pushed all most every individuals, schools, government parastatals, non-governmental organizations, ministries, departments, agencies, religious centres and business organizations to adopt remote teleconferencing through the online and e-learning education engagement , utilizing Zoom technology to implement the novel paradigm shift thereby putting excess demand on telecom data utilities and call recharges as numerous people were forced to work from home(Dhawan, 2020).
The Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), maintained that the industry’s average revenue per user (ARPU) occasionally recognised as average revenue per unit, being the indicator adopted mainly by digital media, consumer communications and networking companies, well-defined as the total income apportioned by the distribution of the network consumers, had increased by N543 between the last six months to induce the service providers’ revenues to go higher in the middle of the year 2020. Unambiguously, towards the last quarter of 2019, the average revenue per user was $3.85 (N1, 182), but towards June 2020, the ARPU extended to $4.49 (N1, 725). The breakdown of the subscriber’s data from the Nigeria Communications Commission indicated that Nigerians number of subscriber’s had hit 186 million in January 2020, while in February 2020 the figure of the subscribers had reached 187.4 million and 189.3 million subscribers were recorded at the end of the 1st quarter (Q1) of 2020. However, toward the month of April 2020, the total network subscribers hit 191 million, while in the month of May 2020, the total number of the subscriber’s hit 192.3 million and 196.4 million subscribers’ were recorded in the month of June 2020 which is expected to reach 200 million towards the last quarter(Q4) around December 2020. At present, the telephone density of Nigeria is 102.88% which is the figure of all telephone system connected by every 100 personalities living within a geographical location. However, the teledensity varies considerably across the geographical divide.