Nigerian Communications Satellite tv for pc Restricted (NIGCOMSAT), the nation’s state-owned satellite tv for pc firm, earned ₦2.2 billion ($1.6 million) in income in 2025, chief govt Jane Egerton-Idehen stated.
The expansion—up from ₦650 million ($470,854) in 2024— comes as questions linger over the way forward for Nigeria’s solely working communications satellite tv for pc, amid a dispute over $11.4 million in unpaid charges to a Chinese language firm.
Egerton-Idehen described the expansion as a part of a deliberate trajectory fairly than a one-off spike. “It’s not going to be a flat line; it’s a progress curve,” she stated throughout a press briefing in Lagos on Friday.
Broadcasting stays the spine of NIGCOMSAT’s earnings, accounting for greater than 50% of complete income. The corporate helps over half of Nigeria’s licenced broadcasters, based on Egerton-Idehen. Its subsequent section of progress will depend on broadband capability, which she says stays considerably underutilised.
“Our largest alternative is broadband,” she stated. “That’s the place the journey to ₦8 billion ($5.8 million) will come from.”
The ambition is critical for an organization that spent years rebuilding buyer belief after the lack of its first satellite tv for pc in 2008 and years of declining confidence in its companies.
NIGCOMSAT says it’s focusing on a number of segments inside the broadband market, together with shopper web, enterprise connectivity, and infrastructure help for telecom operators.
The expansion targets sit towards an unresolved operational threat. NigComSat-1R, Nigeria’s solely working communications satellite tv for pc, was constructed for a 15-year lifespan and has been prolonged to 2028 by technical upgrades. The federal government plans to exchange it with a brand new satellite tv for pc that 12 months, adopted by one other in 2029.
However an ongoing monetary and operational dispute with China Nice Wall Trade Company (CGWIC), which manages the satellite tv for pc, has raised questions on its reliability within the interim.
Egerton-Idehen acknowledged the gaps the corporate has needed to shut. “We needed to win prospects again,” she stated. “Some left and by no means returned due to previous experiences. Now we’re fixing these gaps—service high quality, consciousness, and expertise upgrades.”
An important progress space for NIGCOMSAT is mobile backhaul, the place satellite tv for pc capability is used to attach distant cell base stations to core networks, significantly crucial in rural Nigeria, the place laying fibre infrastructure is usually uneconomical.
State governments have additionally emerged as a significant buyer phase, with Adamawa, Gombe, Cross River, and Imo already utilizing NIGCOMSAT’s companies for connectivity and digital infrastructure tasks.
Past business companies, NIGCOMSAT performs a strategic function in Nigeria’s defence and safety structure. Satellite tv for pc expertise permits safe, real-time communication in areas with out terrestrial community protection, similar to forests and offshore waters.
Egerton-Idehen defined that army operations depend on satellite-enabled techniques put in on transferring property like armoured automobiles and naval ships, permitting them to transmit voice, video, and knowledge again to command centres.
“In environments the place there isn’t a cell protection, satellite tv for pc turns into the one choice,” she stated. “It may be deployed on something that strikes—or doesn’t transfer—and that’s crucial for nationwide safety.”
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