By Adedapo Adesanya
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has said that Nigeria had 154.9 million active internet subscribers at the end of 2022 compared to 142 million recorded at the end of 2021.
The NBS stated the figures in its Telecoms Data: Active Voice and Internet per State, Porting and Tariff Information report for the last quarter of 2022.
This represents a 9.07 per cent increase in active internet subscriptions year-on-year, while on a quarter-on-quarter basis, internet subscriptions grew by 1.35 per cent, it stated.
There were 222.6 million telephone subscribers in Nigeria as of the end of 2022, a 13.87 per cent rise over the 195.5 million subscribers recorded at the end of 2021.
On a quarter-on-quarter basis, the report showed growth stood at 4.89 per cent.
On state-by-state analysis, the report showed that Lagos State had the highest number of active telephone users in 2022 at 26.5 million, followed by Ogun with 13 million users.
Kano State came third with 12.4 million telephone users.
The report showed that Bayelsa had the least number of telephone users at 1.6 million subscribers, followed by Ebonyi and Ekiti with 1.9 million users and two million users, respectively.
It also showed that Lagos State also had the highest number of internet users at 18.7 million subscribers, followed by Ogun with 9.2 million subscribers and Kano State with 8.5 million subscribers.
“On the other hand, Bayelsa recorded the least number of 1.1 million internet users, followed by Ebonyi and Ekiti with 1.3 million and 1.5 million subscribers, respectively,’’ it stated.
The NBS report showed that the majority of telephone users in Nigeria in 2022 were MTN subscribers.
It was revealed that MTN had 65.6 million Internet subscribers by the last quarter, while voice subscribers were at 89.0 million. It was followed by Globacom with 43.1 million and 60.3 million, respectively.
Airtel came third with 41.2 million and 60.2 million, while EMTS (9Mobile) came fourth with 4.4 million and 12.9 million subscribers, respectively.
MTN also saw the highest share of the 2,829 porters peaking its service at 1,812 while 144 exited; Globacom came next with 749 hopping on its service while 208 left.
Airtel saw 154 port-ins whole, 510 ported-out, while EMTS (9mobile) saw 114 port-in while 1,967 ported away from its network.
Modupe Gbadeyanka