Economy
Nigeria Has 150m Mobile Subscriptions, 97.2m Internet Users—Jumia
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
A leading e-commerce in Nigeria, Jumia Nigeria, has released a its third African Mobile Trends Paper highlighting how the market has democratized mobile internet use, the consumer behaviours driving increased smartphone adoption and the role of mobile brands, mobile operators and m-commerce in creating a synergy of an enhanced customer experience.
A statement obtained by Business Post, it was disclosed that were 960 million mobile subscriptions across Africa, an 80 percent penetration rate among the continent’s population. Internet penetration is at 18 percent with 216 million internet users.
“While Nigeria’s internet penetration is much higher at 53 percent, its mobile subscription is similar to Africa’s at 81 percent penetration (150 million mobile subscriptions).
“Like last year, it is presumed that the unique subscription rate is lower as each subscriber owns an average of 2 SIM cards,” Jumia said in the report.
In the white paper presentation from Jumia delving into mobile trends across Africa and specifically Nigeria, this year’s Mobile Africa Study was carried out in 15 African countries which generate more than 80 percent of Africa’s GDP – Algeria, Nigeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Mozambique, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Senegal.
“As predicted in 2016, Nigeria continues its trajectory down the increasingly widening highway that is the mobile internet. With a current internet penetration rate of 53 percent (97.2 million users) Nigeria has a much higher penetration rate than across Africa (18 percent).
“About 71 percent of website visitors on Jumia use their mobile phones. This is in comparison to 53 percent of Jumia African customers.
“One of the main vehicles of this mobile trajectory is the increasing adoption of the smartphone device by consumers.
“As predicted in our 2016 report, smartphone adoption continues to rise in Nigeria. The mobile phone category continues to be the most popular among Nigerian shoppers on Jumia, both in terms of the number of items sold, and in terms of revenue generated.
“The sales of smartphones jumped up by 394 percent between 2014 and 2016, mostly driven by an increasing range of smartphones price points,” Jumia stated.
The report further said, “The average price for a smartphone on Jumia is $117, down from $216 in 2014.
“Correlating with this is a drop in the share of sales of basic feature phones from 6 percent in 2015 to 4 percent in 2016, even as the share of smartphones on the website increased.
“In 2016 Chinese mobile brands held dominance and played a major role in introducing smartphones with lower price points.
“Infinix, Innjoo, Tecno, Samsung and Yezz are the top 5 smartphone brands in terms of sales on Jumia.
“Infinix continues to be Africa’s top smartphone brand across Jumia’s 15 markets. One of their entry level smartphones, the Infinix Hot4Lite was one of the best-selling phones across several African markets including Nigeria,” it added.
The increased access and affordability of low specification smartphones has also revealed a need for the mobile ecosystem to respond with data-efficient browsers and mobile apps that are optimized for performance and an easy user experience.
Looking at the mobile internet browsers customers use to access Jumia, 50 percent of customers in Africa come onto Jumia’s mobile site with Google Chrome. In Nigeria that number is just 28 percent. Instead, the Opera mini browser is much more popular, with 41 percent of the mobile traffic to Jumia Nigeria coming from Opera mini.
One reason for this could be that countries with higher levels of income have been found to have more users accessing the internet with heavier browsers like chrome – which typically have higher system requirements.
Opera mini is a lighter browser in terms of data usage and is popular among new mobile internet users who have lower incomes and can’t afford costly internet data packs.
A recent report from Opera determined the savings on mobile data costs for Opera mini users in Nigeria has amounted to about $198 million (N39.5 billion) over a 10-month period, due to its data compression technology.
This is a clear example of the ripple effect that customer enjoy when a slight change is introduced by one of the digital ecosystem players.
On our end, an immediate key priority is to enhance the desktop user experience (which accounts for almost 30 percent of Jumia’s traffic and almost 40 percent of orders placed) by delivering a progressive web application that bridges the gap between conventional web pages and native mobile applications, to give customers a faster web and desktop experience that includes functionalities like push notifications and the ability to browse while offline.
The trend since 2013 was for people to use their mobile phones to browse and look up products and then purchase them on their desktop.
Now customers are checking out and paying for orders from the mobile app or the mobile friendly version of the website. This is a trend we foresee growing in the future based on the current figures.
Mobile customers (both those who use the Jumia app and those who browse from mobile browsers) account for 63 percent of all orders on Jumia Nigeria.
Across the 15 markets where the study was carried out, that figure is at 47 percent. With a whopping 2,236,000 Jumia app downloads from 2015 to 2016 (a 128 percent increase), Jumia app users form a significant portion of the mobile traffic on Jumia Nigeria. Currently, 1 out of 2 mobile visitors in Nigeria are coming from the Jumia mobile app.
The highest conversion rate recorded in the last year has been on the app. That is the number of completed orders in relation to the number of visitors is higher on the mobile app than on the mobile or desktop versions of the website.
This could be driven by the fact that the app is exclusively designed for mobile and therefore has a faster and better shopping experience for users.
Hence, the priority for mcommerce for the next few years is to continually democratize the usage of the app and incentivize an increase in usage by maintaining a better browsing experience and lower data consumption.
Strategic collaborations with phone operators and data providers are also a key factor for enhancing customer experience.
For example, the 0 data usage (free browsing) offered to MTN sim card owners when they browse on both the Jumia mobile site and the app will remain a key feature and value-added service for Jumia customers.
Nigeria’s mobile trends for 2017 are positive with a steady growth of smartphones adoption and diversity. These increased offerings deliver more value for customers and cheaper access to internet connectivity.
As smartphone brands and mobile operators continue to invest in research and development and innovative data packages, and ecommerce providers invest in customer service, logistics and marketing over the next few years, our outlook is for an even more synergized digital ecosystem over the next few years.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
Nigeria slightly surpassed its quota set by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in July 2026.
In the month under review, the country produced about 1.57 million barrels of crude oil per day.
It was the third consecutive month Africa’s largest oil-producing nation was meeting its monthly quota, set to stabilise the price of the commodity on the global market by the oil cartel.
Data released by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) on Wednesday showed that the 1.5 million barrels per day ceiling for Nigeria was surpassed last month.
The agency disclosed in a statement today that the country produced 1.505mbpd of crude oil and 0.17mbpd of condensate, bringing the combined daily production to 1.67mbpd.
In the month under review, the daily peak production of crude oil and condensate was 1.78mbpd, while the lowest daily production was 1.57mbpd.
Although Nigeria met its OPEC quota in the month of July, the statistics show that on a month-on-month basis, production fell by 4 per cent.
This was attributed to the decline in production due to operational challenges experienced at the Erha and Akpo fields, which impacted crude oil output during the period under review.
These disruptions constrained production volumes and contributed significantly to the overall reduction in national crude oil output.
Despite the challenges, production operations across most other producing assets remained relatively stable, with operators implementing measures aimed at maintaining production efficiency and minimising the impact of operational constraints, NUPRC stated.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
The over 9 billion shares of Lasaco Assurance Plc issued to shareholders of the company via a rights issue have been listed on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited.
The equities were brought to Customs Street on Wednesday by the organisation, increasing its total issued and fully paid-up share capital.
Lasaco Assurance, which scaled the recapitalisation hurdle of the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) in July 2026, raised fresh capital from the capital market to shore up its capital base.
The underwriting firm got about N18.5 billion from the rights issue, which involved the issuance of 9,236,321,546 ordinary shares at a unit price of N2.00.
The exercise was on the basis of five new ordinary shares for every existing six ordinary shares held as of the close of business on Friday, February 20, 2026.
Confirming the listing of the additional stocks of Lasaco Assurance today, the Head of Issuer Regulation Department of NGX RegCo, Mr Godstime Iwenekhai, announced in a circular that, “Trading licence holders are hereby notified that an additional 9,236,321,546 ordinary shares of 50 Kobo each of Lasaco Assurance Plc were today, Wednesday, August 12, 2026, listed on the daily official list of Nigerian Exchange Limited.
“The additional shares arose from the company’s rights issue of 9,236,321,546 ordinary shares of 50 Kobo each at N2.00 per share on the basis of five new ordinary shares for every existing six ordinary shares held as of the close of business on Friday, February 20, 2026.
“With the listing of the additional 9,236,321,546 ordinary shares, the total issued and fully paid-up share capital of Lasaco Assurance Plc has now increased from 11,083,585,855 to 20,319,907,401 ordinary shares of 50 Kobo each.”
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA) has said the successful recapitalisation of the insurance industry will strengthen the sector’s ability to support financial stability and economic growth.
NIA Chairman, Mrs Ebelechukwu Nwachukwu, said a well-capitalised insurance industry would be better positioned to meet its obligations promptly, underwrite complex and large-scale risks and serve as a dependable pillar of the Nigerian economy.
She made the remarks while commending the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) for its structured implementation of the new minimum capital requirements under the Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act (NIIRA) 2025.
Mrs Nwachukwu said NAICOM’s clear guidelines, systematic verification process, defined timelines and rigorous supervision had provided operators with a credible framework for navigating the recapitalisation exercise.
She described the outcome as a major milestone for the industry and congratulated the 43 insurance and reinsurance companies that have successfully met the prescribed minimum capital requirements.
According to her, the exercise represents “a major win not just for regulators and operators, but for policyholders, investors and the wider Nigerian economy.”
Mrs Nwachukwu said the association would continue to work with NAICOM and other stakeholders to consolidate the gains of the exercise, with emphasis on sustainable industry growth, stronger market conduct and improved consumer confidence.
The official also expressed solidarity with the eight companies still undergoing final verification and regulatory review, urging them to remain confident as NAICOM completes the process within the 14-day review period.
The NIA chairman assured policyholders and the wider business community that the insurance industry would emerge from the recapitalisation exercise stronger, more resilient and better positioned to contribute to Nigeria’s economic development.
