Nigeria Is Growing Its Only Satellite Business While China Threatens to Switch It Off

Nigeria Is Growing Its Only Satellite Business While China Threatens to Switch It Off

Quick Reads

• Nigeria’s state satellite company, NIGCOMSAT, reported revenue of ₦2.2 billion ($1.6 million) in 2025, more than tripling its 2024 earnings of ₦650 million, but the milestone arrives under the shadow of a threatened satellite shutdown.
• China’s Great Wall Industry Corporation has given Nigeria a 30-day ultimatum to pay $11.44 million in unpaid satellite maintenance fees or risk losing control of NigComSat-1R, the country’s only functioning communications satellite.
• NigComSat-1R underpins broadcasting for over half of Nigeria’s licensed broadcasters, rural internet access, telecom backhaul, and military communications, meaning a shutdown would hit far beyond your television set.
• NIGCOMSAT’s CEO says the company’s next growth engine is broadband, aiming to reach ₦8 billion ($5.8 million) in revenue, but that ambition depends entirely on a satellite whose future is in dispute.
• Separately, French media giant Canal+ has confirmed it will replace Showmax with its own streaming app across markets like South Africa, after Showmax reportedly lost R8.7 billion over three years.

Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited (NIGCOMSAT), Nigeria’s state-owned satellite company, grew its revenue to ₦2.2 billion ($1.6 million) in 2025, up from ₦650 million in 2024, a more than threefold increase that CEO Jane Egerton-Idehen described as a deliberate growth curve, not a one-off spike.

For a company that spent years rebuilding credibility after the loss of its first satellite in 2008, the numbers represent a real turnaround. The problem is that the company is announcing this growth while its one working satellite is under threat.

China has warned Nigeria that it could shut down the country’s communications satellite if a long-standing debt of about $11.44 million is not paid. The warning came from China Great Wall Industry Corporation, the Chinese firm that built and manages the satellite, which gave Nigeria’s NIGCOMSAT a 30-day ultimatum to settle the bill for Telemetry, Tracking, and Command services, the functions that keep the satellite stable in orbit and operating properly.

Without those services, the satellite’s performance cannot be guaranteed. NigComSat-1R was built for a 15-year lifespan and has been extended to 2028 through technical upgrades, with the government planning to replace it that same year, followed by another satellite in 2029.

The stakes stretch well beyond streaming and internet access. Military operations rely on satellite-enabled systems installed on moving assets like armoured vehicles and naval ships, allowing them to transmit voice, video, and data back to command centres in environments where there is no mobile coverage — satellite becomes the only option. State governments in Adamawa, Gombe, Cross River, and Imo are already using NIGCOMSAT for connectivity and digital infrastructure projects, and the satellite supports cellular backhaul for remote mobile base stations across rural Nigeria, where laying fibre is economically unfeasible. A shutdown would not just affect television. It would knock out communications infrastructure in some of the country’s most vulnerable areas.

Meanwhile, on the content side of Africa’s digital landscape, Canal+ has confirmed it will replace Showmax with its own streaming app in markets like South Africa, after the service reportedly lost R4.9 billion in 2025 alone and a total of R8.7 billion over three years prompting Canal+ CEO Maxime Saada to describe Showmax as a “severely loss-making activity” with little sign of a turnaround. Two stories, one clear message: Africa’s digital infrastructure, from the satellites keeping rural communities online to the streaming platforms competing for urban screens, remains fragile, expensive, and heavily dependent on foreign partners whose patience is not unlimited.