Nigerians’ data consumption surges to 1.04 million terabytes in May despite decline in internet users

Data consumption by Nigerian telecom subscribers jumped to a total of 1.04 million terabytes in May 2025, even as the country’s internet subscriptions declined.

According to the latest industry data released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the May data consumption figure came as the highest monthly record since January 2023, when the telecom regulator started publishing the data.

In the preceding month of April, data consumption stood at 983,283 terabytes, while the closest to the May figure was recorded in January 2025 at 1 million terabytes.

Internet subscriptions decline

Meanwhile, telecom operators continue to see a decline in the number of active internet subscriptions as Nigerians adjust to the recent 50% price increment implemented by all telecom operators in the country.

Total internet subscriptions across mobile, fixed, wired, ISP, and VoIP networks declined to 141.5 million from 141.9 million recorded in April.While the mobile network operators (MNOs) continue to dominate the internet service market, they accounted for the majority of the internet subscription loss in the month.According to the NCC statistics, internet subscriptions on MTN, Airtel, Globacom, and 9mobile declined from 141.4 million in April to 141 million in May.Active mobile subscriptions down

Total active subscriptions across the four mobile networks also declined slightly in May, dropping 172.4 million from 172.6 million recorded in May.

However, the decline was driven by only two operators: MTN and 9mobile. While MTN remains the largest operator by subscriber number, its active subscriptions declined by 258,313 to 90.2 million from 90.5 million in April.

9mobile, the distant 4th operator, which recently signed a landmark deal to leverage MTN’s infrastructure, also lost 291,214 subscriptions in the month. This brought its database to 2.6 million from 2.9 million recorded in April.Conversely, Airtel gained 342,597 subscriptions in the month, pushing its database to 58.9 million from 58.5 million recorded in April. Globacom’s database remained flat in May at 20.6 million.Despite the loss recorded in May, MTN accounted for 52.33% of the mobile market share in Nigeria, while Airtel maintained the second position with 34.17%.Globacom’s market share stood at 11.96%, while 9mobile accounted for only 1.55% of the pie.

Meanwhile, with the slight decline in actively connected lines recorded by the operators, the country’s teledensity, which measures the number of active telephone connections per 100 inhabitants living within an area, also declined to 79.65% from 79.78% recorded in April.

According to NCC, the teledensity is calculated based on a population estimate of 216 million.