Nigeria ahead india, South Africa as most mobilized country

A new report has placed Nigeria ahead as the most mobile telecommunications induced nation, with 76% of the internet traffic comes through mobile.A “Nigeria 2016 Mobile Trends 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% mobile penetration (unique users vs. population) and 30% smartphone penetration ratea, Nigeria is now head of India and South Africa with 65% and 57% internet traffic coming through mobile, respectively.

From 2011 – 2016, number of smartphone users increased from 4m to 15.5m, as reflecting on the new of 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 shows share of desktop traffic decreased from 57% in 2011 to 18% in 2015 and mobile share of traffic increased from 42% in 2011 to 79% in 2015.
According to the report, Samsung leads “Web usage by Device” accounting for 25% of the market; Apple (20%), Blackberry (15%), Infinix (9%), Nokia brands account for 7%, Tecno (6%), HTC (3%), Microsoft (2%), Sony (1.0%) while other brands put together account for remaining (17%).

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

Apparently, the active mobile subscribers table by operators from 2012 – 2016 shows MTN dominance with 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.

Meanwhile, market share of device vendors from 2012 to 2016 reflected the changes in the market which is primarily dominated by Infinix, Tecno, Innjoo, Xiaomi, Gionee, Huawei, while Facebook continues to lead market share of social media sites from 2012 to 2016 with 98% acceptance.

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

Mobile money: How Nigerians are sending money on mobile? The report revealed 34.10% are leveraging shortcode methods of mobile money transfer, 34.60% use bank apps, 6.20% are using other mobile money solutions, while the rest 35.10% have not transferred money before.

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

Speaking 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”.

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