Nigeria’s 5G Market Share Jumps 41% As 2G, 3G Lose Ground

• Nigeria’s 5G market share jumped 41% in one year.

• 4G and 5G now account for 58.92% of mobile connections.

• 2G and 3G still make up 41.08% of the market.

• Nigeria consumed 8.52m TB of internet data in H1 2026.

September 08, () — Nigeria’s shift towards faster mobile networks accelerated over the past year, with 5G’s share of mobile connections rising by almost 41% between July 2025 and June 2026.

Data from the Nigerian Communications Commission shows that 5G accounted for 4.61% of mobile connections in June, up from 3.27% a year earlier. That represents a 1.34 percentage-point increase and a 40.98% rise in its share.

4G remains far more dominant, however. Its share increased from 51.22% to 54.31% over the same period, giving newer-generation networks a combined 58.92% share of Nigeria’s mobile connections by June.

Older technologies moved in the opposite direction. 3G’s share fell from 7.13% to 4.86%, while 2G declined from 38.38% to 36.22%.

4G Still Carries Nigeria’s Digital Economy

5G may be growing fastest, but 4G remains the backbone of Nigeria’s mobile connectivity.

More than half of all mobile connections were running on 4G in June, compared with just 4.61% on 5G. The figures show that Nigeria’s network transition is happening in stages, with 4G absorbing much of the migration away from older technologies while 5G gradually expands its footprint.

Combined, 2G and 3G still accounted for 41.08% of connections in June. That leaves a substantial portion of the market on legacy networks even as newer technologies gain ground.

Nigeria’s total active telecom subscriptions reached 192.23 million in June, according to the NCC, giving operators a large and increasingly data-intensive customer base. MTN remained the market leader with 98.64 million subscribers, followed by Airtel with 66.12 million, Globacom with 23.68 million and T2 with 3.54 million.

Nigeria’s Network Transition Is Far From Complete

5G’s rapid growth is happening alongside a much slower decline in older networks.

3G recorded the sharpest fall, dropping 31.84% in share over the year. 2G declined by 5.63%, leaving more than 36% of mobile connections still dependent on the older technology.

That gap is worth nothing because the migration to 4G and 5G depends not only on network investment but also on handset affordability, coverage and consumers’ ability to pay for increasingly data-heavy services.

Data demand is already rising rapidly. Nigeria consumed about 8.52 million terabytes of internet data in the first half of 2026, up from 5.96 million terabytes during the same period in 2025.

For operators, that creates a clear investment case for higher-capacity networks. For consumers and businesses, the shift towards 4G and 5G increasingly determines how easily they can use services such as video, cloud applications, digital payments, remote work and other bandwidth-heavy tools.

At 4.61% of connections, 5G is still a relatively small part of Nigeria’s mobile market. Its growth rate, however, points to where the market is heading.