MTN Nigeria’s N1.62 trillion investment in network infrastructure since January 2025 is coming under growing pressure as Nigerians consume more mobile data and depend on digital services.
The telecommunications company invested N620.5 billion in capital expenditure in the first half of 2026, as its subscriber base surpassed 100 million and average monthly data consumption rose 15.2 percent year-on-year to 14.8 gigabytes per user.
The investment forms part of a broader network expansion programme that has seen MTN deploy about N1.62 trillion across roughly 66,000 sites since January 2025.
The spending has gone into tower upgrades, spectrum deployment, fibre expansion and the rollout of 5G infrastructure.
MTN said its 5G network had reached about 730 sites across 27 states by the end of the first half of the year.
The scale of the investment reflects the growing demands being placed on Nigeria’s telecommunications infrastructure as smartphone adoption and mobile internet usage increase.
Industry measurements also point to an improvement in network performance as median mobile download speeds in Nigeria rose from about 16.5 megabits per second at the beginning of 2026 to around 20 Mbps by mid-year.
Similarly, MTN reported 55.7 million active data users during the first half of the year which implies a growing proportion of its customer base is generating significant demand for network capacity.
Data consumption is driven by services that were once less dependent on mobile connectivity which includes video streaming, social media, digital financial services, cloud applications, remote work and other internet-based services.
For operators, this means network expansion is no longer about increasing geographical coverage. More capacity is required within existing networks to accommodate customers who are using considerably more data.
MTN’s data business is already reflecting that shift as the company reported N1.699 trillion in data revenue for the first half of 2026, up 38.4 percent from the same period in 2025.
The increase was supported by growth in active data users, higher consumption per subscriber and rising smartphone penetration, which MTN put at 66.4 percent.
However, the investment required to support this growth is taking place against a challenging operating environment.
Telecommunications operators continue to face high energy costs, foreign-exchange pressures and the rising cost of imported network equipment.
Diesel, which remains an important source of power for telecommunications infrastructure, has become expensive since 2023.
MTN’s 2025 energy mix shows the extent of the challenge. Diesel accounted for 58.11 percent of the company’s energy consumption, while gas supplied through independent power producers accounted for 23.63 percent.
Electricity from the national grid represented 18.04 percent, while renewables contributed only 0.05 percent.
The company is therefore looking beyond traditional power sources as it seeks to reduce the cost of keeping its network running.
In June, MTN Nigeria signed its first utility-scale solar power agreement, securing 34 megawatts of solar capacity across eight of its largest sites through a partnership with First WATT.
A larger contribution from renewable energy could reduce the company’s exposure to diesel prices and help lower some of the operating costs associated with powering telecommunications infrastructure.
Network security is another pressure on the cost of maintaining infrastructure.
Yahaya Ibrahim, MTN Nigeria’s chief technology officer, said in August that the company records about 450 incidents of vandalism every day across its fibre and tower infrastructure.
Fibre cuts and damage to telecommunications sites can disrupt services while creating additional costs for repairs, security and network restoration.
The pressure comes as the industry has also moved to higher tariffs following regulatory approval for increases in 2026, after several years without a major industry-wide adjustment.
For operators, higher tariffs provide some room to absorb rising costs and fund infrastructure expansion while for consumers, the challenge is ensuring that the cost of maintaining and expanding networks does not undermine access to mobile internet.
MTN’s numbers illustrate the tension
On one side is an expanding digital economy in which consumers and businesses are demanding more connectivity while on the other is the growing cost of providing the infrastructure needed to meet the demand.
With more than 100 million subscribers and 14.8GB of average monthly data consumption per user, MTN’s network is carrying substantially more traffic than it did several years ago.
The company’s N1.62 trillion investment since January 2025 therefore represents not only an expansion programme but an attempt to keep network capacity ahead of demand.
The longer-term test will be whether continued investment in fibre, spectrum, 4G and 5G, combined with efforts to reduce energy and infrastructure-maintenance costs, can translate into faster, more reliable connectivity without making mobile internet unaffordable.
For Nigeria’s digital economy, the quality and affordability of that connectivity will determine whether rising data demand translates into broader economic value.