14/08/2026
As of December 2025, Nigeria had 179.64 million active mobile connections, according to NCC data, but only about half of those connections came with internet access.
That gap is easy to miss if you're only looking at total subscriber numbers. A phone connection and a data connection aren't the same thing, and the difference between them is tens of millions of people.
It's part of why two channels that look similar on the surface: apps and USSD actually reach very different audiences. An app needs data to load, a login to work, storage space on the device. USSD works over the same basic signal that carries a phone call: no internet required, no download, no smartphone needed.
If your current strategy leans entirely on apps and data-based channels, that's tens of millions of active connections you're not reaching. Worth asking whether it's time USSD had a place in the plan.