. Broadband users surpass 100m, 5G leaped by 0.16%
Telecommunications operators have added about 3.39 million telephone lines to the country, pushing active users to 172.7 million. This amounts to 79.67 per cent teledensity.

According to the data released, yesterday, the number of active telephone users moved from 169.3 million as of January to 172.7 million by March ending.

The latest data showed that 4G technology remained most dominant in the country with 48.82 per cent penetration. This is followed by 2G with 40 per cent and 3G had 8.40 per cent as of Q1 2025.

The Fifth Generation (5G) offered by MTN, Mafab and Airtel leaped slightly by 0.16 per cent. It moved from 2.54 per cent as of the beginning of the year to 2.70 per cent by the end of March. The 2.70 per cent means that of the 172.7 million active telephone users in the country, 4.66 million are using the 5G network.

Further analysis however, showed a drop in the number of Internet users in the country. As of January, it was 142, 161,409 but dropped to 142,053, 537. But Broadband penetration rose to 47.73 per cent from 45.61 per cent. Interestingly, there are now 103.5 million broadband users in the country.

In terms of market dominance, MTN maintained the lead with 90 million users and 52. 4 per cent market reach. Airtel is second with 58.3 million customers and 33.8 per cent reach. Globacom came third with 12 per cent penetration and 20.7 million subscribers. 9mobile is fourth with 1.72 per cent nationwide penetration and 2.96 million customers.

MEANWHILE, MTN has apologised for service glitch experienced by some subscribers yesterday.

The Guardian recalled that some MTN subscribers across Nigeria woke up to a network downtime on Tuesday.

As a result of the glitch, many users on the network were unable to access the internet and many social networking apps, except WhatsApp. Some affected subscribers claimed the blackout started as early as 6am with them not being able to do anything on the network.

A subscriber based in Festac, a suburb of Lagos, Ayinde Olakunle, said: “I couldn’t use the network as early as 6am. Just to open a site…it went blank for several hours. I had to switch to another network to be able to perform some tasks online.”

On X, a user, Top Gun @mukhtar_usman, wrote: “I can’t believe a network will just shut down Internet service and get away with it. Thought my phone had spoilt at some point last night.”

To Mazi Nathan @rukky_nate, “The only reason MTN will turn off Internet services across Nigeria for hours is simply because there will be no consequences from the government. Nigeria is not a working country. It is a failed state, and MTN is a subset of the overall systemic failure.”

@ossynoya wrote: “It is crazy what MTN and Airtel are doing today (yesterday), MTN especially. Not sure if it’s related to the planned protest today but how do you turn off the network since 3 am today (yesterday)?

“There’s the lack of respect for Nigerians by everyone that’s supposed to serve us.”

However, responding through a message to subscribers, MTN apologized for the service shutdown.

“Y’ello, we sincerely apologise for the recent disruption to our services caused by a network connectivity failure affecting some of our customers.

“The issue has now been fully resolved, and all services are back online. Still, experiencing difficulty? Please restart your device and refresh your connection. Thank you for your patience and understanding.”