With 12,690 new subscribers in Q4 2023, Starlink becomes Nigeria's 3rd largest internet service provider

In Q4 2023, Spectranet maintained its top position as Nigeria's biggest internet service provider with nearly 114k active subscribers, holding 43% of the market share. FiberOne followed with 10% of the market.

Starlink increased its subscriber base by 113% to claim the 3rd position with 9% of the market.

Here are Nigeria's top internet service providers by active subscribers in Q4 2023.

Source:

Nigerian Communications Commission

Period:

Q4 2023
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MTN added the most subscriptions, while Airtel recorded faster growth
  • MTN became Nigeria’s first operator to cross 100 million active subscriptions.
  • MTN added 7.8 million subscriptions between December 2025 and July 2026.
  • Airtel grew faster than MTN, despite adding fewer subscriptions overall.
  • T2 recorded the fastest growth at 11.9% over the period.
  • Nigeria’s active subscriptions rose by 15.5 million to 194.9 million.
Samsung’s mobile vendor share is particularly strong in Southern Africa
  • Samsung exceeds 50% share in 4 African countries, led by Somalia at 66.9%.
  • Its share exceeds 40% in 16 countries, including Ethiopia, South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe.
  • Southern Africa shows particularly high Samsung usage, with all five UN M49 countries above 44%.
  • Samsung’s share is much lower in major markets, including Nigeria (16.3%), Egypt (22.9%) and Ghana (24.7%).
  • Samsung holds a 32.0% share across Africa, based on mobile web traffic rather than device sales.
Apple's mobile vendor share exceeds 25% in seven African countries, led by Seychelles at 37.6%
  • Apple exceeds 25% share in 7 African countries, led by Seychelles at 37.6%.
  • Cape Verde and Mauritania follow, at 36.5% and 33.8%, respectively.
  • South Africa trails just below 25%, with a 24.8% share.
  • Nigeria’s 17.9% share is close to Africa’s 18.7% average, despite its market size.
  • These figures measure web traffic, not device sales or installed smartphone base.
Nigeria’s top 3 ISPs — Spectranet, Starlink, and FiberOne — account for a combined 63.3% of the market
  • Spectranet leads with 111,384 subscribers, ahead of Starlink's 98,642.
  • Starlink added 6,651 subscribers since December 2025, narrowing the gap to 12,742.
  • Fieldbase Services overtook ipNX for 4th place by just 18 subscribers.
  • The top three ISPs account for over 63% of Nigeria's 420,989 active subscribers.
Volume of internet data consumed in Nigeria in May 2026
  • 1.5 million TB was consumed in May 2026, the highest monthly level on record.
  • 7 million TB was consumed in Jan–May 2026, up 42.1% from the same period in 2025.
  • Jan–May 2026 usage was 88.4% higher than in 2024 and 156.3% higher than in 2023.
  • May’s monthly usage was nearly 2.6× the level recorded three years earlier.
  • The surge points to rapidly growing demand for internet-based services, content and digital activity in Nigeria.
In 2023, about 1 in 6 Nigerians were still on 3G; by 2026, that's down to about 1 in 20
  • 3G's share of Nigeria's mobile market fell from 16.5% to 5.1% between May 2023 and May 2026.
  • 4G became the dominant network, with its market share rising from 25.1% to 54.3% over the same period.
  • 2G's share declined from 58.4% to 36.1% but still accounted for more than one-third of all mobile connections.
  • 5G expanded nearly 37-fold, growing from less than 0.1% to 4.5% of mobile subscriptions.
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