Nigeria ranks world most mobilized country ahead of India, SA- Report

A new report dubbed “Nigeria 2016 Mobile Trends Report” released by Twinpine has placed Nigeria ahead as the most mobile telecommunications induced nation, with 76 percent of the internet traffic coming via mobile.

The report released by Twinpine at its fifth anniversary shows that with total population 184.6 million (estimated); 74.7m unique mobile users (any type of handset); 40 percent mobile penetration (unique users versus population) and 30 percent smartphone penetration rate, Nigeria is now ahead of India and South Africa with 65 percent and 57 percent internet traffic coming through mobile, respectively.

From 2011 – 2016, number of smartphone users increased from 4million to 15.5million, as reflecting on the new time Nigerians spend daily on smartphones exceeding other media platforms; thus, the report indicated that Nigerians spend, on average, 131 minutes watching television, 80 minutes on laptop; 193 minutes on smartphone and 39 minutes on tablets daily.

Twinpine’s report also indicated that the share of desktop traffic decreased from 57 percent in 2011 to 18 percent in 2015 and mobile share of traffic increased from 42 percent in 2011 to 79 percent in 2015.

Samsung , according to the report  leads “Web usage by Device” accounting for 25 percent of the market; Apple (20 percent), Blackberry (15 percent), Infinix (9 percent), Nokia brands account for 7 percent, Tecno (6 percent), HTC (3 percent), Microsoft (2 percent), Sony (1.0 percent) while other brands put together account for remaining (17 percent).

The trends in the Nigeria mobile market as disclosed in the report showed that subscribers can buy fifteen times worth of data with N1000 in 2016 than they could in 2011, referring to the ‘data bundle war’ which mobile operators have embarked on in the recent past.

Evidently, the active mobile subscribers table by operators from 2012 – 2016 indicates MTN dominance, increasing from 19,732,901 (2012) to 57,045,721 (2016), Glo subscribers also increased from 8,602,731 (2012), 34,608,793 (2016), Airtel 5,948,190 (2012) to 33,866,798 (2016) and Etisalat subscriber base also increased from 4,455,290 (2012) to (21,877,542). The 2016 figures are as at first quarter of the year.

However, the market share of device vendors from 2012 to 2016 revealed the changes in the market which is predominantly dominated by Infinix, Tecno, Innjoo, Xiaomi, Gionee, Huawei, while Facebook sustained the lead market share of social media sites from 2012 to 2016 with 98 percent acceptance.

Twinpine also disclosed the Nigerians mobile lifestyle, citing that 50 percent mobile phone users watch online video in the evening; 69 percent of the number watch videos on their mobile phone daily which was in line with a recent report by Ericsson which revealed that in 2015, video accounted for around 50 percent of mobile data traffic while almost 70 percent of all mobile data traffic will be from video by 2021 and growing by 55 percent annually during this period.

Twinpine’s report on mobile money showed how Nigerians are sending money on mobile and revealed that 34.10 percent are leveraging short code methods of mobile money transfer, 34.60 percent use bank apps, 6.20 percent are using other mobile money solutions, whereas the rest 35.10 percent have not transferred money before.

Twinpine also said in the report on mobile commerce (m-Commerce) that “Nigerians are shopping via mobile as much as on desktop on weekends. We found that 83 percent of Nigerians online research an item before purchasing. From the number, 46 percent of the online shoppers research items before purchase via Google; 14 percent social media; 15 percent review sites and 25 percent website of the seller”.

Commenting on the report, Chika Nwachukwu, Insights Lead at Twinpine, said “we created this report to highlight interesting trends from our 5 years of connecting brands with their audiences on mobile in Africa.

“From lifestyle habits to mobile market share analysis, this report highlights key mobile activities of Nigerians and shows how mobile has grown over the years”.

Twinpine was formally launched on the 1st of August 2011, as a team of under-30 entrepreneurs set out to fulfil the vision of making Twinpine the premium mobile advertising platform of choice.