When you think about why millions of Nigerians aren’t online, the first guess is usually infrastructure. Maybe there aren’t enough towers. Maybe rural communities just don’t have 4G coverage. But the thing is, Nigeria has the coverage, 5G, 4G, you name it. What it doesn’t have are the devices.
Smartphones have quietly become one of the biggest barriers to connectivity, and their rising price tags are keeping six out of ten Nigerians offline. Think about that for a second. Six out of ten.
According to GSMA’s State of Mobile Internet Connectivity 2025 report, 130 million Nigerians lived under mobile coverage but still couldn’t log on in 2024, that’s about 10 million more than the year before. That puts the country right behind India (690 million) and China (240 million), and tied with Pakistan (130 million), in the global offline population.
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China, usually a reliable engine for global growth, wasn’t much help either.
A phone that went for around $50 a year ago now costs closer to $54. On paper, that’s a few dollars. But once you convert it into naira, the gap is crushing. Due to the currency’s collapse after the Central Bank’s 2023 reforms, a device that sold for ₦44,000 in 2023 now costs about ₦83,000 in 2024.
That’s more than an entire month’s paycheck for someone earning the ₦70,000 ($46) minimum wage. If you’re feeding a family, are you really going to spend that on a phone? So, it’s no wonder Canalys reported a 7% drop in Nigeria’s smartphone market in Q1 2025, as households are picking food and rent first over phones.
What we don’t talk about enough is that when phones become unaffordable, it’s not just about fewer selfies or less TikTok. It’s about the digital economy hitting a ceiling. Mobile is Nigeria’s primary gateway to the internet, and 84% of broadband runs through phones.
So every app, whether fintech, e-commerce, edtech, or telehealth, depends on people actually owning a device. If most Nigerians can’t afford one, fintech onboarding slows, online shopping stalls, and those learning apps never make it into the classrooms that need them most.
What’s being done to solve this divide?
Companies are scrambling for answers. Transsion, the Chinese parent of Tecno, Itel, and Infinix, has built a 65% market share by focusing on sub-$100 devices. Financing schemes like Easybuy, M-Kopa, and Jumia Flex now let people pay in installments, and Canalys says that’s already helped spark a 10% rebound in Nigeria’s smartphone market in Q2 2025.
Even telcos are stepping in as MTN Nigeria and Airtel are pushing for cheaper 5G handsets, with MTN joining a GSMA coalition aimed at cutting costs further.
But let’s be real, all of that only scratches the surface. GSMA argues the real breakthrough would be a $30 (₦45,150) smartphone. At that price point, mobile internet could suddenly become affordable for 1.6 billion people worldwide, including tens of millions in Nigeria.
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But the market leader, TRANSSION saw its first stumble after seven long quarters of growth.
The catch is that getting there would require big interventions: tax breaks, local assembly plants, subsidies, and far more aggressive financing models. This isn’t just on manufacturers; governments, telcos, and banks also need to step up.
Another irony is that while the global industry obsesses over 5G rollouts and AI-powered devices, the battle that matters most in Nigeria is far less glamorous: making sure ordinary people can buy a basic smartphone. Until that happens, Nigeria’s digital economy will keep splitting into two worlds, a small, connected elite and a vast offline majority. And without serious action, that divide is only going to get wider.
Updated
September 11, 2025
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