Nigeria’s Data Usage Surges by 46.77% in 2022, Says NCC Findings

Nigerian consumers, along with others using telecommunication services within the country, collectively spent N3.33 trillion in 2022, according to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) report.

This amount mirrors the total revenue generated by telecommunications companies throughout the year. The NCC’s recently published ‘2022 Subscriber/Network Data Annual Report’ unveiled these figures.

The report indicates that the total count of active subscribers surged from 195,463,898 in 2021 to an impressive 222,571,568 active voice subscriptions by December 2022, marking a significant 13.86 percent year-on-year increase.

Commenting on the increase, the commission said, “The increase in the Operators’ subscriber base was attributed to a number of reasons which includes subscriber loyalty, promos, seasonal effects, aggressive consumer acquisition drive, and competitive product offerings across all the networks.”

It noted that the growth in active subscriptions impacted positively on other derived telecom indicators such as teledensity, Internet penetration as well as broadband penetration.

Data usage also continued its surge in 2022. It increased by 46.77 per cent to 518,381.78TB as of the end of the year.

The NCC stated, “There was an increase in the volume of data consumed at the year-end December 2022 when compared with the year-end December 2021.

“The total volume of data consumed by subscribers increased to 518,381.78TB as of December 2022 from 353,118.89TB as of December 2021. This represents an increase of 46.77 per cent in data consumption within the period.”