Nigerians speed 5.5% of income to buy a phone, says MTN

<strong> </strong> MTN Nigeria has said an average Nigerian spend 5.5 percent of their monthly income before they can be able to purchase a mobile phone. Olusegun Salami, senior manager, Transmission Access Planning at MTN Nigeria stated this in a presentation he made at the Nigeria Information and Communications Technology Reporters’ Association (NITRA) quarterly seminar series held in Lagos last week. According to him, this has greatly hindered the penetration of smartphone in the country, where only about 12 million out the 150 million active mobile subscribers have access to smartphones. “Per capital income in an average Nigeria home is low, this has resulted in the disappointing low smartphone usage in the country.” He said given the size of the country’s population and the proliferation of digital activities, coupled with this era of social media and other web contents, smartphone with multiple functionalities is the driving force behind broadband penetration. “Everybody wants to be connected on the go, but access to these smartphones remains a challenge in Nigeria, where citizens spend 5.5 percent of their income to own a phone,” he stressed. MTN has in a bid to get more Nigerians access to the Internet launched smartphones that go for as low as N10,000 and N8,000. The leading mobile network operator in Nigeria in terms of subscriber base said through the move, Nigerians are easily accessing several initiatives like mobile money, mobile health, e-learning and Agriculture through the smartphone.