Nigeria with 63 million internet users has been ranked the number one internet user in Africa, and number eight in the world.This was contained in the second edition of digitalfacts – Nigeria, West & Central Africa; a publication produced by digitXplus.
The book stated that the following fifteen countries have the highest number of internet users in the world: China (632 million); USA (269 m); India (198m); Japan (110m); Brazil (105m); Russia (87m); Indonesia (83m); and Germany (68m). Others are: Nigeria (63m); UK (57m); France (54m); Mexico (52m); Iran (49m); Egypt (43m) and South Korea (42m).
The publication revealed that since 2011, Nigeria has maintained a steady upward trend in the number of internet users. It stated that from 35.7 million, the figure increased to 42.8 million; 51.8m; 57.7m and 63.2m internet users in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015; respectively.
Digitalfacts puts the total number of internet users worldwide at 3.2 billion as at December 2015; representing a whopping increase of 8.9% over 2.9 billion internet users recorded at the end of 2014.
Based on the regional statistics contained in the publication, Asia-Pacific had 1.6 billion internet users as at December 2015; while North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Central/Eastern Europe and Middle East/Africa boasted of 288 million; 325 million; 310 million; 238 million; and 429 million; in that order.
The book further made public that the Nigerian telecom sector, one of the largest in Africa, is driven almost completely by mobile telephony.
“Rapid expansion of the wireless networks and competition has driven down voice tariffs and made basic cellular services affordable, especially for the poorer rural consumers,” digitalfacts stated.
It also acknowledged that the relatively affluent urban middle classes increasingly enjoy 3G and 4G LTE services; adding that consumers face issues pertaining to service quality and network congestion while religious extremism in the north of the country has affected infrastructure investments.
(VANGUARD)
