Nigeria to lead Africa's target to achieve 613 million mobile subscriber connections by 2025

According to GSMA, sub-Saharan Africa will have 100 million additional subscribers between now and 2025.

While making the projections for 2025 in its ‘Mobile Economy Sub-Saharan Africa 2022 report, GSMA said: 

“By the end of 2021, 515 million people subscribed to mobile services in Sub-Saharan Africa, representing 46% of the population – an increase of almost 20 million on 2020. There will be nearly 100 million new subscribers by 2025, taking the total number of subscribers to 613 million (50% of the region’s population). The two most populated countries – Nigeria and Ethiopia – will account for almost a third of new subscribers in the period to 2025.”

Nigeria’s population which is currently the largest in the continent is seen as a major factor to drive and sustain this growth in the next three years despite the current level of mobile penetration in the country.

According to Statista, the number of mobile internet users in Nigeria was over 80.93 million in 2021.

It was also recorded that 37.3 percent of the Nigerian population accessed the internet via mobile device In 2022.

Data from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) also shows that Nigeria’s active mobile subscriptions as of October 2022 stood at 214.3 million. 

This shows a 9.8% increase when compared to last year's figures which stood at 195 million in December 2021.

Ethiopia has been tipped to join Nigeria in this project being the continent's most-populated countries at about 120 million and close to 220 million respectively.

Nigeria is projected to add 18 million new subscribers in the next 3 years, followed by Ethiopia with 12 million subscribers.

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