The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has revealed internet users in Nigeria consumed a total of 655,879.86 terabytes of data in August.
The data released by the telecom regulator indicated that there has been a steady rise in the amount of data being consumed in the country.
The August usage represents a 6.6% rise when compared with 615,207.39 terabytes consumed in July.
Meanwhile, internet subscriptions in the country declined in the month under review, indicating that existing subscribers increased their internet usage in the month.
According to the data, internet subscriptions across mobile, fixed, and VoIP networks slipped to 159 million in August from 159.5 million recorded in July.
Telcos’ revenue jump on rising data usage
With the steady rise in data consumption, telecom operators are seeing growth in their revenue. Just recently, Airtel Nigeria in its financial report for the quarter that ended June 2023, disclosed that average usage by customers on 4G increased to 10.7GB per month from 7.4
this in its financial report for the quarter ended June 2023. According to the report, the increase in data consumption by 4G users represents a 44.4% jump when compared with 7.4GB per month data usage recorded at the same time last year.
For non-4G users on Airtel, their data consumption also increased from an average of 4.6GB per month last year to 5.7GB per month as of June this year, representing a 24.5% increase.
According to the company, the increase in data consumption pushed its data revenue for its Q1 2024(April-June 2023) to $228 million (about N176,7 billion) from $210 million (N162.7 billion) recorded in the same period last year.
For the half year 2023, MTN Nigeria also reported that its revenue grew by 34.9%, “largely due to increased usage supported by the enhanced capacity through network expansion and smartphone penetration.” According to the company, data usage (GB per user) grew by 28.2% to 8.1GB as of June this year.
Smartphone penetration
According to the Chief Executive Officer of MTN Nigeria, Mr Karl Toriola, the increase in smartphone penetration in Nigeria is driving data consumption and data revenue growth. Toriola said the revenue trend has been going in a direction where data will become MTN’s main revenue source.
- “The contribution of voice to total revenue has been coming down while the contribution of data has been going up. So, we will see their convergence We expect that data will overtake voice at some point in the near future. As of April 2017, voice contribution was 70%, but today, it has gone down. Between the next 18 to 36 months, data will overtake voice in terms of revenue contribution and this will be driven by factors such as the increase in smartphone penetration and the uptake of 5G,” he said.
