The recent Ericsson Mobility Report has ranked Nigeria as the country with the third highest mobile subscriptions additions globally as of the first quarter of 2021.
It also projected increase in 5G subscriptions from 2022, to reach seven per cent in 2026.
The report stated that India had the most net additions of over 26 million, followed by China with over six million and Nigeria with over three million mobile subscriptions additions.
According to the report, by the end of 2026, sub-Saharan Africa would have around 70 million 5G subscriptions, while attributing the projected increase to the COVID-19 pandemic, which it said, led to the implementation of online education at schools and universities as well as remote working in Nigeria, which increased to 72 per cent and 62 per cent respectively.
Ericsson recently unveiled two reports: ‘The 20th edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report and The Future of Urban Reality Report,’ that together, forecast the future of 5G in sub-Saharan Africa and around the world in addition to forecasting the post-pandemic world.
Ericsson projected that 5G mobile subscriptions would exceed 580 million by the end of 2021, driven by an estimated one million new 5G mobile subscriptions every day.
The report featured statistics from sub-Saharan African markets, where around 15 per cent of mobile subscriptions were for 4G at the end of 2020.
The net addition of mobile subscriptions was quite low during Q1 2021, at 59 million.
In a separate survey, the Global Telecom Market Report (GTM), also known as “The Future of Urban Reality Report” was also launched recently by the Ericsson ConsumerLab, to assess the penetration of 5G and the tremendous potential it holds to markets around the world.
The latest Ericsson ConsumerLab report is Ericsson’s largest consumer study to date, revealing key insights about what Nigerian consumers believe will happen beyond the pandemic, into the year 2025, through surveying a sample of 1,000 to 2,000 respondents between the ages of 15–79 years.
The report found that, when entering the ‘next normal’, consumers in Africa would have added an average of 3.4 online services to their daily online activities, while also increasing the time they spend online by 10 hours per week by 2025, in comparison to their pre-pandemic habits.
This is also expected to bridge the gap between moderate and advanced online users, with the more moderate online users having introduced more online services in their daily life over the course of the pandemic.
According to the report, before the COVID-19 pandemic, the amount of online shopping in Nigeria stood at 35 per cent out of the total number of all shopping events, both online and at physical stores. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the figure increased to 51 per cent. Nigerian consumers anticipate their habits around online shopping will remain at a level of 44 per cent after the COVID-19 pandemic has passed.
