How many internet users do we really have in Nigeria?

1. How many
internet users
do we really have
in Nigeria?
Stanislaus Martins
AUGUST
2016

2. L
et’s talk about the number of internet
users in Nigeria. Depending on who
you ask, you will find different
numbers branded all over the internet.
The body in the best possible position to
give the exact figures is the NCC. They put
the number at close to 97 million as at June
2016. This is the number most people quote
in their presentations and talks,
interestingly this only covers GSM
connections.
The popular online statistics website,
Internet world stats puts it at 92.7 million,
the ITU says it’s 79 million and the CIA (I
wonder why they are tracking ;-)) gives the
lowest estimates I have seen in a while – 66
million, even that I think is over inflated.
The guys at Wearesocial were so confused
that they decided to quote all four sources in
their annual digital report just for balance.
Now, these numbers are pretty high and
can be very misleading, investors and
business people see these numbers and
instantly believe Nigeria is a goldmine and
without much-ado, they pack their bags,
stuff their pockets with green backs, book a
flight and head off to Nigeria to start an
online business to reach these almost 100
million active internet users.
What usually starts with so much
excitements and positivity always tends to
end the same way after just 6 months. The
most popular question you then begin to
hear from these frustrated entrepreneurs
becomes “Where the F*** are these 100
million online Nigerians?”
I write to try to address the F***ing question
:-),At least I intend to try.
Why am I qualified to attempt to answer this
question when even the NCC has not tried
to address this? Well because I am smart
and I am not a bureaucracy. NCC’s figures
are actually correct when you are interested
in device count. When you need to run a
campaign or sell a product and need to
know how many people you can possibly
reach, it’s totally off!!!
...The popular online statistics
website, Internet world stats
puts it at 92.7 million, the ITU
says it’s 79 million and the
CIA (I wonder why they are
tracking ;-)) gives the lowest
estimates I have seen in a
while – 66 million,
even that I think is over
inflated.
How many Internet users do we really have in Nigeria? | 1 |Stanislaus Martins
ImageCredits:pexels.comFreeimages.com
w w w . m a r t i n s . c o m . n gme@martins.com.ng

3. w w w . m a r t i n s . c o m . n gme@martins.com.ng
I have 10 yeas experience in Technology
with the last 5 in a senior position as
Head of Digital for one of the largest
marketing communications agencies in
West Africa. I run loads of campaigns for
some of the biggest brands in the world
and I get to encounter this challenge on
a too constant basis, everyone wants to
know where these 100 million Nigerians
online are. I am obsessed with startups,
while I don’t actively participate in the
startup pace in Nigeria, I have a couple
of startups I am bootstrapping (reason
why am always broke ;-)) and try to stay
updated with both local and global
changes happening in the space. I know
enough about tech startups to write a
few books.
Ok, here is the answer for those of you
who don’t have the time to read the rest
of this very long post. WE DO NOT
HAVE 100 million Nigerians online, they
just don’t exist. If you plan is to sell your
product to 100 Nigerians online in 2016
or 2017, best forget it.
I will be working with the NCC number
since it’s supposed to be the most
authoritative. When NCC says there are
...WE DO NOT HAVE
100 million Nigerians online,
they just don’t exist.
If your plan is to sell your
product to 100 million
Nigerians online in 2016 or 2017,
best forget it.
How many Internet users do we really have in Nigeria? | 2 |Stanislaus Martins
97 million active internet users in Nigeria
they refer to devices and not unique
users.
NCC is able to track connections only at
switch level and as such can track
device ids and phone numbers. Any
unique phone number is detected as a
unique user but this is sooooooo wrong
as many Nigerians have at least 3 lines,
there is practically no way to track
unique numbers using the current
method. I personally have 5 lines with
only two active, the other 3 come online
from time to time. What this means is
that the NCC counts me as 5 users. With
the sim registration process that is now
mandatory to activate a sim card in
Nigeria one would have thought they
would be able to use that data to
address the duplications to arrive at
actual uniques.
Dual sim phones are practically the norm
in Nigeria and with just two
phones(which is also a norm in Nigeria)
a user could have four different lines. I
have friends who carry 3 phones and all
are dual sim devices. While the method
adopted by NCC works for more

4. Facebook is the number one social network in
Nigeria with 16 million active users and with this
number according to facebook driven 100% by mobile
connection. With Facebook Lite and Internet.org, one
would assume that a large chunks of Nigerians online
are on Facebook but it appears that only 16 million
are. That number is too far off from the 97 million but
closer to my 24 or 32million numbers.
Eskimi is a top mobile network here in Nigeria which
caters more to the guys in the lower social economic
class. It claims to have over 9 million Nigerians on the
platform every month. I almost don’t know anybody on
Eskimi but then it is supposed to cater for a unique
market.
Nairaland, probably one of the top home grown
online destinations in the country has never had more
than 9 million unique visitors on the website and tends
to average around the 7 million mark a month, bear in
mind that a lot of the traffic on Nairaland also comes
from Nigerians in diaspora. I personally doubt there is
any local website that gets more traffic than Nairaland
in Nigeria so I will use them as my benchmark.
Despite being so popular, the site has only 1.6 million
registered users lower than Eskimi or any of the top
social networks.
developed markets because in those
markets, there is absolutely no reason to
have multiple devices, the same is not
the case in Nigeria.
Let’s assume an average Nigerian user
has 3 lines ( a conservative estimate)
let’s divide that 97 million from NCC by 3
and see what we get. We are now at
about 32 million Nigerians which is lower
than all the numbers usually quoted. I
just did a quick survey of 8 friends who
are close to me right now and most
have 4, one has 5, none have one .
Imagine if we divided the 97 million by 4,
then we would have 24 million users.
Let’s dig a bit deeper into the Nigerian
digital space and see if this number
makes more sense, to do this I will use
data from different top online
destinations in Nigeria to make my case.
assuming we did have 93 million users
online, they would be spending their time
ONLINE right? Let’s see.
If we had close to 100 internet users in
Nigeria then the following situations don’t
make any sense.
How many Internet users do we really have in Nigeria? | 3 |Stanislaus Martins w w w . m a r t i n s . c o m . n gme@martins.com.ng

5. How many Internet users do we really have in Nigeria? | 4 |Stanislaus Martins w w w . m a r t i n s . c o m . n gme@martins.com.ng
Another shocking data that reached me
recently is the one below which shows
Nigeria’s top E-commerce site, Konga as
only having 184,000 active users. That’s
pretty low if you ask me, I would have
thought they had at least a million users.
The number last year was 210,000
active users so they are well on their way
to exceed that number for 2016 if by half
year they have almost reached the
200,000 active users mark. Jumia on the
other hand also published figures that
leads one to assume they get 80,000
users on a regular day.
Ope Adeoye of Interswitch was once
quoted to have said “There are 200,000
active cards in Nigeria, as opposed to 97
million internet users.” .
That makes a lot of sense as Nigerians
typically prefer to pay on delivery. So if
you are offering an online service in
Nigeria and your business model does
not support an option for buyers to pay
on delivery, you have effectively limited
your potential market size to 200,000… I
digress

6. How many Internet users do we really have in Nigeria? | 5 |Stanislaus Martins w w w . m a r t i n s . c o m . n gme@martins.com.ng
From a planning point of view you are best advised to use my number of
32 million so you don’t end up getting frustrated.
Let me through a spanner into that 32 million users number; 30% of that
number represents smartphone users and the rest are feature phone
users. I will let you ponder on that and end my post here.
The list goes on, Twitter which is a fast
growing mobile social network in Nigeria
has less than 3 million active users.
Blackberry, one time instant messaging
powerhouse in Nigeria currently only has
4 million active users.
Except for Facebook, no platform is
seeing 10 million active users in a month
in Nigeria, the other two that come close
is Eskimi and Nairaland. Linda Ikeji
probably hits high numbers but can’t
really quote any figures here.
These all leads me to conclude that we
have the same set of Nigerian users all
over the place. The same people you
see on Linda Ikeji, are on Nairaland,
Naija, Eskimi, Facebook, Pulse, Naij and
on Martins.com.ng All the top platforms
are simply just seeing the very same
users.(So much for your targeting efforts)
We don’t have close to 100 million
Nigerians online, it more between the 24
million and 32 million mark and you can
quote me on that. If my number isn’t
accurate trust me it’s more accurate that
what the official sources quote.
Let’s try to have a robust discussion...
How many users do you think
we actually have online in Nigeria?
me@martins.com.ngEmail me at
Follow me @OlusegunMartins@StanDMan

7. With over 10 years experience in the Digital and Technology space in
Nigeria, Stanislaus Martins is a solid fusion of Technology and Marketing.
He is a professional photographer and creative at heart.
Stanislaus likes to talk Innovation, Technology, Digital and Marketing.
He is currently Head of Digital at Insight Publicis, one of the top marketing
communications agencies in West Africa.
w w w . m a r t i n s . c o m . n g
me@martins.com.ng @OlusegunMartins@StanDMan
...about
w w w . i n s i g h t n i g e r i a . c o m
How many
internet users
do we really have
in Nigeria?