Nigerians spent ₦20.87 billion day by day on knowledge in 2025

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Nothing illustrates Nigeria’s rising dependence on the Web greater than how a lot individuals now spend on knowledge. Between 2024 and 2025, nationwide knowledge spending jumped 171.41% to ₦7.62 trillion ($5.58 billion), in keeping with TechCabal’s evaluation of Nigerian Communications Fee (NCC) consumption knowledge and common knowledge pricing.

Each time a Nigerian streams a soccer match, joins a web-based prayer assembly, scrolls Instagram, or binge-watches Nollywood on YouTube, cash is transferring from their wallets to telecom steadiness sheets. Whereas this behavioural shift has change into a core income engine for telcos, it has additionally intensified client frustration over rising prices and unreliable service. 

With video streaming alone consuming as much as 1GB per hour in HD, increasing digital habits, mixed with tariff hikes, pushed Nigeria’s annual knowledge consumption up 35.70% to 13.25 million terabytes (13.25 billion GB) in 2025.  This lifted common per-user utilization to  89.42GB, up from 70.09GB a 12 months earlier.

The maths

By TechCabal’s calculations, Nigeria’s annual Web spend hit ₦7.62 trillion ($5.58 billion) in 2025, primarily based on a mean knowledge value of ₦575 per GB ($0.42). In 2024, the determine stood at   ₦2.81 trillion ($2.06 billion), when 1GB averaged ₦287.5 ($0.21).

This calculation was an evaluation of the common price of 1GB nationwide, utilizing costs from telcos’ web sites. 

Winners

Telecom operators are the most important monetary winners, with knowledge income changing into their largest contributor to general income.

Streaming platforms like YouTube are the second main beneficiaries.  

Other than being the default streaming platform of selection for spiritual leaders and the content material monetisation engine for content material creators, YouTube is shortly changing into the house for Nollywood motion pictures as cinema economics proceed to rise.

As subscribers spend extra on knowledge, they’re feeding platforms monetisation that is determined by larger engagement time to indicate ads to customers.

This development has pushed Nigeria above the regional common for web utilization, with round 29% of the inhabitants utilizing it. 85% of Nigerians on the cellular web use it to make or obtain video calls, 75% use it to observe free-to-access on-line movies, and 54% use it to stream free music, in keeping with GSMA.

The hidden price for subscribers

For customers, rising knowledge spend has not translated into reliability.

Web downtime has change into routine, usually defining whether or not a workday is productive or wasted.

“Final December, the community acquired so unhealthy I couldn’t be a part of most of my conferences,” stated Treasured Sebiomo, a lawyer primarily based in Lagos. “I misplaced workdays to community failure.”

When the web fails, livelihoods endure.

In 2024, a serious outage on MTN Nigeria left clients unable to make calls or connect with the web. The outage, which lasted 4 hours, was brought on by a number of fibre cuts.

Between January and August 2025, telecom operators recorded over 19,000 fibre cuts, triggering extended outages and repair disruptions.

In 2025, MTN had 1002 main outages. T2 Cellular (previously 9mobile) had 632. Airtel had 248, and Glo had 124.

These main outages usually outcome within the full shutdown of essential companies similar to SMS, voice calls, cellular knowledge, and USSD, typically lasting for hours, leaving tens of millions digitally stranded.

Past outages, Nigerians face gradual speeds. The nation was ranked eighty fifth globally for cellular speeds and 129th for fastened broadband speeds in December 2025, in keeping with Speedtest Intelligence by Ookla Analysis, a worldwide knowledge perception firm.

Common speeds on cellular had been 44.14 Mbps, and glued broadband had been 33.32 Mbps. In a worldwide digital economic system, this locations Nigerians at a structural drawback, competing internationally with slower, much less dependable infrastructure.

In response to Adeolu Ogunbanjo, president of the Nationwide Affiliation of Telecoms Subscribers (NATCOMS), a consumer-focused trade physique, solely improved service high quality will justify the worth hike of 2025.

“Nigerians are nonetheless complaining as a result of the poor companies have continued,” he stated.

Nonetheless, telcos argue that the telecom sector has been hampered by years of underinvestment, largely as a result of they may not afford to.

“The value improve, which was extremely wanted for the survival and continued development of the trade, will allow us to proceed investing in community infrastructure, increasing protection, and delivering improved services and products that meet the evolving wants of our clients,” Airtel Nigeria’s CEO Dinesh Balsingh stated in an announcement in January 2025. 

With pricing evaluate already applied, telcos are spending extra on community infrastructure. MTN Nigeria has greater than tripled its capital expenditure to ₦757.4 billion ($554.38 million) as of October 2025.

Telcos notice that it’ll take time for outcomes to indicate, however the persistence of the Nigerian Communications Fee (NCC) is starting to wane.

In January 2026, Nigeria’s Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Financial system, Bosun Tijani, directed the regulator to impose computerized penalties on operators for community failures inside 90 days.

The regulator additionally plans to impose penalties of not less than ₦12.4 billion ($9.08 million) on operators for service breaches in 2026, because it prioritises high quality service supply throughout the 12 months.

Nigeria’s knowledge economic system is now value not less than ₦7.62 trillion ($5.58 billion), in keeping with  TechCabal’s evaluation of NCC consumption knowledge and common knowledge pricing. For telcos, this can be a assured development engine. For platforms and content material creators, this can be a subscriber goldmine.

For Nigerians, this can be a structural dependency that’s rising dearer, however no more dependable. If community high quality doesn’t enhance, subscribers might finally begin trying past terrestrial networks and towards satellite tv for pc connectivity for stability in a rustic that more and more runs on knowledge.