NCC Says Nigerians Consumed 350,165 Terabytes of Data in 2021 

Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC), Friday, said telecom subscribers in the country consumed about 353.1 terabytes of data in 2021.

The telecom industry regulator disclosed this in its 2021 Subscriber/Network Data Annual Report.

According to the report, the amount of data being used by an average Nigerian increased by 68 percent compared with the 209.9 terabytes consumed in 2020.

The report also revealed a decrease of 8 percent in internet subscriptions for the year.

Broadband penetration decreased from 45.02% as of December 2020 to 40.88% as of December 2021.

Affected by the directive from the NCC in December 2020 to all GSM Operators to suspend the sale and registration of new SIMs, SIM swaps, and all porting activities, subscriptions for internet decreased from 154.3 million as of December 2020 to 141.9 million as of December 2021.

The increase in the volume of data consumption by subscribers, however, covered the network operators in terms of revenue. This is reflected in the 2021 financial results of two of the leading network operators, MTN and Airtel, which showed a surge in earnings from data.

Similarly, Broadband Subscriptions decreased from 85.9 million subscriptions in December 2020 to 78 million subscriptions as of December 2021.