In January 2025, Nigeria achieved a significant milestone in its internet usage by surpassing 1 million terabytes (TB) of data consumption for the first time. This achievement is particularly noteworthy because the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has been monitoring data usage since January 2023, and it shows how much more people in Nigeria are relying on the internet and digital services.
However, even with this impressive milestone, the amount of data consumed in January 2025 was actually lower than in the previous month. Specifically, Nigerians used 27,475 terabytes of data in January, which is a sharp drop from the 94,502 terabytes used in December 2024.
To put this into perspective, terabytes are a way to measure how much data is being used online. One terabyte is equal to 1,000 gigabytes (GB) or 1,000,000 megabytes (MB). This kind of measurement is important for companies that provide internet services, especially those catering to businesses, people who stream videos, and gamers who use a lot of data.
The decline in data usage could present some challenges for telecommunications companies like MTN Nigeria and Airtel Nigeria. These companies recently raised their data prices by 50%, which might make people less willing to use as much data as they did before. If users cut back on their data consumption due to the higher costs, it could affect the companies’ revenue growth.
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Despite the drop in data usage, both MTN and Airtel saw an increase in the number of people subscribing to their internet services in January 2025. MTN gained 1.4 million new internet users, bringing its total to 73.7 million subscribers. Airtel also had a good month, adding 1.08 million subscribers to reach a total of 48.4 million.
On the flip side, Globacom has been facing difficulties. After a regulatory audit in April 2024, the company saw a significant loss in its subscriber base. In January 2025, Globacom could only add 313,939 new users. Meanwhile, 9mobile, another telecom operator, did not gain any new subscribers at all during this time.
