Active internet users in Nigeria increased to 156.99 million in February 2023, the Nigerian Communications Commission Statistics revealed.
The NCC Stats shows that the telecommunication companies (telcos) reported a total of 156.42 million active subscribers to data services in February leaving 567 million subscribers to Fixed Wired, ISP (Wired/Wireless), and VoIP.
MTN accounted for the majority of the increase, with 66.7 million active internet subscribers in the month under review. Globacom came in second with 43.4 million, followed by Airtel and 9mobile with 41.9 million and 4.3 million, respectively.
For the period under study, the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have a total number of 204.81 million active subscribers.
The report also shows an increase of 743.06 million in the total number of active users in Nigeria from 156.24 million recorded in January 2023 and 156.99 million recorded in February 2023.
Also, NCC reported that the telco’s active internet users rises by 745.7 million subscribers in a month. This shows an increase as against 155.68 million recorded for January 2023.
Further analysis of the industry data shows that active mobile telephony service in February rose to 227 million. With the growth recorded by the operators, the country’s teledensity, which measures the number of active telephone connections per 100 inhabitants living within an area, also jumped from 118 per cent in January to 119 per cent in February 2023. Density is calculated based on a population estimate of 190 million.
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A report on the mobile economy 2023 states that Mobile connectivity will continue to be a lifeline for society, helping the most vulnerable people in areas affected by conflict and natural disasters to stay connected.“
At the end of 2022, over 5.4 billion people globally subscribed to a mobile service, including 4.4 billion people who used the mobile internet.”
The Global System for Mobile Communications report disclosed that In 2022, mobile technologies and services generated 5 per cent of global GDP, a contribution that amounted to $5.2 trillion of economic value added, and supported 28 million jobs across the wider mobile ecosystem.
In Nigeria, the percentage contributed to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Nigeria by the telecommunications industry grew by 13.55 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2022, the NCC data shows.
However, the telecommunication and information sector reported the highest growth rate compared to other ICT sectors in the economy in 2022.