Nigeria leads West Africa in affordable mobile data pricing, with an average cost of $0.38 per gigabyte, significantly below the regional and global averages.
This was highlighted in the GSMA report titled “The Role of Mobile Technology in Driving the Digital Economy in Nigeria”, which corroborates findings by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
According to the report, Nigeria’s mobile data costs as a percentage of Gross National Income (GNI) per capita are the lowest in the West African region, underlining the country’s position as a leader in affordable connectivity.
In comparison, Kenya averages $0.59 per gigabyte, Ethiopia $0.68, and South Africa $1.77, while the United States records $6 per gigabyte.
However, amid these low costs, Nigerian telecommunications operators are advocating for a tariff increase to address the challenges posed by currency devaluation, inflation, and rising operational costs.
For instance, MTN Nigeria’s chief executive officer, Dr Karl Toriola, highlighted the diverse challenges the Nigerian telecommunications industry had to scale through in the past year due to the state of the Nigerian economy, emphasising the need for tariff adjustments to ensure sustainability of the sector.
“2024 was a very torrid year for the entire telecoms industry. We are the largest operators, so we were probably able to be a bit more resilient but it’s been very difficult,” he said.
Toriola cited the major factors which contributed to the challenges of telecoms operations in 2024, noting that the cost of operations of the telecoms firm now exceeds its revenue.
“The difficulty was triggered by the currency devaluation and inflation which happened on a very rapid scale. What this has done is that it has driven the cost of operations up so significantly, that by the end of the year, we are spending more to keep operations up and running than we are generating in revenue and that is not sustainable,” Toriola said.
He noted that the tariff increase will enable telecom operators to build the capacity needed to provide quality services. “What the tariff adjustment allows us to do is to continue to reinvest, because we need to build capacity, build resilience, put in additional generators and alternative power supply systems for stable and high-quality networks,” Toriola said.
More importantly, he emphasised that the operations of telecom operators are threatened due to present challenges and the tariff adjustments are needed for the sector to survive.
“If you have any organisation that’s spending 160 per cent of what it earns in revenue, at some point that organisation is going to shut down. We are running on fumes to keep our networks up, and we are keeping our networks up. We are not shutting down any networks at this point, because we believe that sooner or later, the sustainability issue will be addressed,” he stated.
Meanwhile, the federal government has acknowledged the need for tariff adjustments, while also assuring Nigerians that any increase will be moderate, and not up to 100 per cent as the telcos had requested.
Speaking on the tariff increase in a recent stakeholders’ meeting with Mobile Network Operators, the minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, said: “We want to strike the balance as a government, to protect our people, but also protect and ensure that these companies can continue to invest significantly”.
As discussions concerning the advancement of the telecom sector continue to unfold, stakeholders seek to balance the industry’s operational sustainability with consumer affordability, ensuring that Nigeria’s digital landscape thrives and is accessible to all Nigerians.
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