The current economic squeeze in Nigeria seems to be affecting the number of internet users in the country as citizens are prioritizing food over data usage.
The Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, has said that the number of internet users in Nigeria’s telecommunications networks drifted to 91,910,341 in December 2016.
The telecommunications industry umpire made the disclosure in its Monthly Internet Subscribers Data for November, obtained yesterday in Lagos.
The data indicated that internet users on both Global System for Mobile communications, GSM and Code Division Multiple Access, CDMA, networks dropped by 536,346 in December as against 92,446,687 users recorded in December.
It showed that out of the 91,910,341 internet users in December, 91,880,032 were on GSM networks, while 30,309 users were on CDMA networks.
Also, GSM service providers lost 536,346 internet customers after recording 91,880,032 users in December as against 92,416,378 in November.
The data said MTN had 31,753,369 subscribers browsing the internet on its network in the month under review.
It said MTN recorded a drop of 264,410 internet subscribers in December after recording 32,017,779 in November.
It also said Globacom has 27,010,178 customers surfing the net in December, revealing a decline of 112,714 users, from the 27,122,892 that surfed the internet on the network in November.
Airtel had 19,363,545 internet users in December, adding 219,845 customers to its November record of 19,143,700.