Internet Subscribers in Nigeria Rises by 13.8% to 154.4 million

The number of internet subscribers in Nigeria rose by 13.8 per cent from 135.7 million in March 2020 to 154.4 million in November 2020, according to a report by the National Communication Commission (NCC).

Analysis showed that this occurred as data usage in Nigeria witnessed a 33 per cent increase between March and November last year as it grew from 147,537.52 terabytes to 196,163.42 terabytes.

The piece titled 2020 Subscriber/Network Data Report showed that last year witnessed a significant increase in data usage which reflected on the nation’s telecom industry performance in the period.

NCC noted that the COVID-19 pandemic altered the way and manner business activities were carried out as it reflected the industry performance for the year which challenged the global telecommunication industry in general.

This heavily contributed to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which rose to 12.5 per cent from 10.6 per cent in the same period in 2019.

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In terms of the total active voice subscriptions, the NCC report showed there was a 10.6 per cent increase from 184.7 million in December 2019 to 204.2 million as of December 2020.

Teledensity – the number of telephone connections for every hundred individuals living within an area – also increased in the period from 96.8 per cent to 107.1 per cent.

In the mobile voice market segment, subscriptions grew by 10.7 per cent to 204.2 million as against 184.4 million recorded in December 2019. It was revealed that MTN recorded the highest increase in terms of this, as it made a 17.5 per cent year-on-year, in contrast to EMTS, owners of 9mobile, which recorded a drop of 4.8 per cent year-on-year.

The telecom industry also recorded a 60 per cent climb in the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) market segment, increasing from 166,068 subscriptions in 2019 to 265,604 subscriptions the following year.

However, there was a 0.1 per cent decrease in the Fixed Wired/Wireless segment as the section recorded a total of 107,031 subscriptions in December 2020, compared to the 107,154 in the preceding year.