In a statistical revelations that have left many people bewildered, the National Bureau of Statistics(NBC) reveals a shocking news that a total of 222.6 million telephone subscribers were in Nigeria as at end of 2022. This is in a country of 200 million Nigerians.
The NBS made the disclosure in its Telecoms Data: Active Voice and Internet per State, Porting and Tariff Information report for the last quarter of 2022 that was released on Monday in Abuja.
The released data indicated an increase of 27.1 million subscribers over the 195.5 million subscribers recorded at the end of 2021.
Furthermore, it was also stated in the report that the figure for the last quarter of 2022 represented a 13.87 per cent rise in voice subscriptions on a year-on-year basis. However, the report on a quarter-on-quarter basis, showed that growth stood at 4.89 per cent.
The report also recorded a total of 154.9 million active internet subscribers at the end of 2022 compared to 142 million recorded at the end of 2021. As succinctly put: “This represents a 9.07 per cent increase in active internet subscriptions year-on-year, while on a quarter-on-quarter basis, internet subscription grew by 1.35 per cent.’’
On states’ comparative basis, Lagos State had the highest number of active telephone users in 2022 with 26.5 million followed by Ogun and Kano States with 13 million and 12.4 users, respectively.
The report’s data also indicated that Lagos State had the highest number of internet users at 18.7 million subscribers, followed by Ogun with 9.2 million subscribers and Kano State with 8.5 million subscribers.
Bayelsa, nonetheless recorded the least number of telephone users at 1.6 million subscribers while Ebonyi recorded 1.9 million users and Ekiti two million users.
Also, Bayelsa recorded 1.1 million internet users adjudged as the least number for that category as the state trails Ebonyi and Ekiti with 1.3 million and 1.5 million subscribers, respectively.”
