Nigeria’s active mobile subscribers to grow by 60% 2025
The number of active mobile phone lines in Nigeria increased to 199.3 million as of May, 2020 from 184 million in December 2019.
This was disclosed by the Executive Vice Chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Danbatta, during a virtual launch/award ceremony of the COVID-19 Research Grant presented to three startups, by the NCC on Tuesday Abuja.
According to Danbatta, internet subscription in the same period also increased from 126 million to 147.1 million, while broadband subscription also increased from 72 million to 80.2 million, achieving a 42.02 per cent penetration in the country.
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Danbatta did not give a detailed breakdown of Nigeria’s active mobile subscribers’ growth. But in Nigeria, a great majority still use dumbphones with basic features such as voice calls and text messages.
But the number of smartphone users in the country is forecast to grow to more than 140 million by 2025. At the moment, its only around 20 to 25 per cent of the population that use a smartphone, with penetration expected to grow to around 60 per cent by 2025, according to Statisa.