Nigeria has been rated as Africa’s largest mobile internet market with an estimate of over 140 million subscribers and a penetration surpassing 100% as analysed by the U.S. Census Bureau and local census office.
The calculation places Nigeria as number one with 70.3m internet users with an average of 39.7% out of the 177,155,754 estimated Nigerian population as at the second quarter of 2014. The average internet usage is also referred to as population penetration.
Egypt follows in second place with 46.2m users, and then South Africa in third with 24.9m, Kenya 21.3m, Morocco 20.2m among others.
The African cumulative figures for the second quarter of 2014 show that Nigeria’s internet usage grew by 23.6% within four years progressively.
Africa is witnessing one of the strongest increases in mobile data usage in the world as forecasts suggest that mobile internet traffic across the continent will double between 2014 and 2015, and will see a 20-fold increase by the end of the decade.
With the figures available, Nigeria is now seen as one of the largest and fastest growing telecom markets in Africa with the sector attracting considerable foreign investment given the potential for further growth.
A new report by Portland Communications, a Kenyan-based public relations agency and Tweetminster a media platform says Nigerians are the third most active Twitter users in Africa. This is laced with proven facts as twitter played a vital role in the just concluded Nigerian election, giving updates and live feeds from polling units and following up with INEC collation and other activities.
Though Internet World Statistics for Facebook usage in 2011 established that the number of Nigerian Facebook users had increased from 400, 000 in 2007 to 4.3 million at the end of the same year it is expected that Nigeria’s position will inevitably double as social media has become a vital part of societal culture with studies suggesting that when Nigerians go online (predominantly with their mobile phones and tablets) they spend much of their time on social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and so on).
This goes to show that the issues of fuel scarcity and the devaluation of the naira that plagued the nation recently did not affect the usage of internet and the expenses on data bundle which continues to grow as more Nigerians go digital and prioritise staying connected.
It is also important to note that the incumbent national telcom, Nitel and its mobile arm M-Tel are in liquidation, with the NATCOM Consortium acquiring the telcom in March 2015 for some $252 million. This goes a long way to point to how Telecom and internet services in Nigeria are not only maximized by customers but investors as well.
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