From 23 million to 2.4 million: How Etisalat became 9mobile, then T2mobile - and what went wrong

Precious Omolu 13:32 - 24 June 2026

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From its high-flying origins as Etisalat to its identity as 9mobile, and now its transformation into T2, the telecom operator has undergone radical rebranding in a bid to reclaim its market share

Etisalat Nigeria's subscriber base fell from 23.5 million to 2.4 million after a debt crisis, rebranding to 9mobile and later T2. Here's what caused the decline and whether the telecom operator can recover.

Etisalat Nigeria peaked at 23.5 million subscribers in 2015 but was forced to rebrand as 9mobile in 2017 after a $1.2 billion loan crisis and the exit of its UAE parent company.
Years of underinvestment, network challenges, and failed acquisition attempts led to a massive loss of customers, with subscribers dropping to 2.4 million by June 2025.
New owner LH Telecommunications has rebranded the company as T2, backed by a $3 billion investment plan and a roaming partnership with MTN aimed at reviving the struggling network.

When Etisalat Nigeria launched in 2008, it felt like a genuine challenger had arrived. Backed by the deep pockets of the UAE-based Etisalat Group, the operator entered Nigeria's Wild West telecom market with sharp marketing, flexible data plans, and a reputation for quality that its rivals struggled to match. Young Nigerians fell in love with the brand almost immediately.

The growth was extraordinary. Within less than six years of launch, Etisalat had recorded over 16 million subscribers, and in September 2015 hit its highest-ever subscriber base of 23.5 million users, following months of consecutive monthly surges in network adoption.

Then it all began to unravel.

The loan that broke everything

In 2013, Etisalat Nigeria took a $1.2 billion syndicated loan from a group of 13 Nigerian banks to fund network expansion. By 2017, the company struggled to service the debt due to Nigeria's economic recession, a sharp devaluation of the naira, and rising operating costs.

The naira's collapse was the killer blow. The loan was denominated in dollars, so as the naira weakened, the local cost of repaying it ballooned beyond what the business could sustain. After failed debt restructuring talks, Etisalat UAE withdrew its shareholding and demanded that the Nigerian subsidiary stop using the "Etisalat" name within a few weeks.

Twenty-two million subscribers woke up one day to discover their network had been abandoned by its parent.

The slow bleed of 9mobile

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) stepped in to prevent a service collapse and worked with lenders to appoint a new management team. On July 13, 2017, the company was rebranded to "9mobile."

The rebrand was supposed to be a fresh start. Instead, it marked the beginning of a slow, painful decline. Etisalat had operated under a managed service agreement with Huawei, but the Chinese tech giant's relationship was with the UAE parent company. When Etisalat UAE walked away, so did much of the technical expertise and infrastructure support that had made the network reliable.

Without fresh investment or the operational backbone that had made it competitive, 9mobile began haemorrhaging customers. Between 2016 and 2020, 9mobile lost about 10 million subscribers, struggling to compete with MTN, Airtel and Globacom. By the end of 2024, it had lost another 9 million users.

Potential investors came and went. Teleology Holdings, founded by MTN Nigeria's former CEO Adrian Wood and eleven others, made a non-refundable $50 million down payment to acquire 9mobile in 2018, then exited the deal abruptly two months later. The cycle of abandoned promises became a running theme.

A new owner and name

On July 26, 2024, the NCC officially approved the acquisition of 9mobile by LH Telecommunications Limited, led by Thomas Etuh, who took a controlling stake of 95.5%. The new UK-based investor promised a $3 billion, four-year investment plan to modernise the company from the ground up.

By June 2025, the company had dropped to just 2.4 million active subscribers — less than a tenth of its 2015 peak, according to the NCC.

On August 8, 2025, at an event themed "Tech Meets Tenacity" at the Marriott Hotel in Lagos, 9mobile officially rebranded to T2, ditching its iconic green for a vibrant orange, which the company says symbolises "ripe arrival" after years of turbulence.

CEO Obafemi Banigbe didn't shy away from the difficult history. "We have endured as a business, we have struggled as a business, but like Nigeria, we always bounce back stronger, we always bounce back sharper," he said. "We are not ashamed of the scars that we carry."

Can T2 actually come back?

T2 CEO Obafemi Banigbe speaks frankly about the brand's historic corporate scars while charting a four-phase recovery plan during the official rebrand ceremony

The rebrand comes alongside new leadership, a refreshed board, and a strategic national roaming deal with MTN to boost coverage, as well as a four-phase recovery plan covering stabilisation, modernisation, transformation and growth.

The roaming deal with MTN, approved by the NCC in July 2025 and effective from October 2025, allows T2 subscribers to roam on MTN's extensive network under a three-year agreement.

But the road ahead is brutally steep. Trust, once broken in Nigeria's competitive telecom market, proved nearly impossible to rebuild. The company became synonymous with poor network quality, dropped calls, and frustrated customers. Every Nigerian who left has a reason not to come back.

The story of Etisalat, 9mobile and T2 is ultimately a story about what happens when foreign currency debt meets a collapsing naira, when a parent company abandons its African child, and when a brand that millions loved is left to drift for nearly a decade without direction or investment. Whether T2 can rewrite that ending is the question Nigerian telecoms watchers will be asking for the next few years.