By Adedapo Adesanya
The number of active internet subscribers in Nigeria increased by 0.62 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2022 to 145.9 million from the 145.0 million achieved in the same period of last year.
In the Telecoms Data: Active Voice and Internet per State, Porting and Tariff Information report for Q1 2022 released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the slow growth was attributed to the inability of Nigerians to buy and register new SIM cards following directives from the federal government to halt the sale of new cards over security measures as well as the directive that all SIM cards must be linked to a National Identification Number (NIN).
The report showed that Lagos State stood top for active internet subscriptions with a total of 17,839,569 subscribers in the period under review, closely followed by Ogun State with 8,538,812 and Kano State with 8,364,587.
“On the other hand, Bayelsa had the least with 1,043,059, followed by Ebonyi and Ekiti with 1,230,081 and 1,373,888 respectively.”
The report showed that MTN, which has the largest market share in the country’s telecommunication sector, had the highest number of subscriptions in the period under review, followed by Glo and Airtel in second and third places respectively.
It was also confirmed that a total of 199,558,540 active voice subscribers were recorded in Q1 of 2022, a 3.7 per cent rise compared to 192,413,613 that it recorded in Q1 of 2021.
On a quarter-on-quarter basis, the report showed growth stood at 2.1 per cent.
On state analysis, the report showed that Lagos also had the highest number of active voice subscribers in Q1 of 2022 with 24,226,878, followed by Kano with 11,666,630 and Ogun with 11,537,006.
The report showed that Bayelsa state had the least with 1,445,123, followed by Ekiti state with 1,786,160 subscribers.
Aduragbemi Omiyale