The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has revealed that data consumption in the country hit an all-time high of 1.1 million terabytes in July 2025.
According to the latest industry statistics released by the Commission, the first milestone was hit in May, when 1.04 million terabytes was used.
The increase in consumption comes as more Nigerians move to higher generation of networks, 4G and 5G, leading to higher speed.
NCC’s data shows that the percentage of Nigerian internet users on 4G increased to 50.85% in July, while 5G is also steadily coming up at 3.17%. Conversely, 3G usage is declining in the country as only 7.38% of connections were on 3G as of July.
Despite the increase in data consumption, telecom operators continue to see 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.
Meanwhile, active mobile subscriptions in the country plunged to 169.1 million in July from 171.5 million recorded in June this year.
The decline was driven by the losses recorded by the three mobile network operators but most significantly by Airtel, which lost 2.4 million subscriptions in the month.
With the 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 78.11% in July from 79.22% recorded in June.
The surge in data consumption, while boosting revenue on the telecom operator, is also putting more pressure on them to invest more in expanding their infrastructure capacity to meet the growing demand.
To meet this demand, he said the company is investing heavily to accelerate the deployment of 5G in the country.