How many women use phones or internet in Nigeria and how frequent. The variables are:

• Background characteristics
• Owns any mobile phone
• Owns a smart phone
• Ever used the internet
• Used the internet in the last 12 months
• Number of women
• Almost every day
• At least once a week
• Less than once a week
• Not at all
• Total
• Number of women (internet users, last 12 months)

Two-thirds of Nigerian women own a mobile phone, but only about a third use the internet. Behind that national average, access depends heavily on where a woman lives, how much education she has and how wealthy her household is. These are the findings of Table 2.15 of the Nigeria MIS 2025, which covers 23,815 women aged 15 to 49.

Phones are common, smartphones are not

Overall, 66.1% of women own a mobile phone. Only 35.0% own a smartphone, so roughly half of phone owners hold a basic handset. Internet use closely follows smartphone ownership: 36.3% of women have ever used the internet and 34.4% have done so in the last 12 months. In practice, the smartphone is the gateway to getting online.

Among women who used the internet in the past year, usage is intense. About 65.1% went online almost every day in the previous month, and another 24.9% did so at least weekly. Only 1.7% had not used it at all in the month. Once women get online, they tend to stay online. The main barrier is access, not interest.

Age: young women are not the most connected

Teenagers are the least connected age group. Among women aged 15 to 19, 43.1% own a phone, 22.5% own a smartphone and 27.6% used the internet in the last year. Women in their 20s lead on internet use, at 39.4% for ages 20 to 24 and 37.6% for ages 25 to 29. The 20 to 24 group also has the highest smartphone ownership (41.5%) and the heaviest use, with 70.0% online daily. Phone ownership itself peaks later, at 74.2% for women aged 35 to 39, while internet use gently declines after the late 20s, to 30.1% among women aged 45 to 49.

Urban and rural: a 38-point divide

Residence produces one of the starkest gaps. In urban areas, 81.2% of women own a phone, 53.4% own a smartphone and 53.6% used the internet in the past year. In rural areas the figures are 50.9%, 16.5% and 15.1%. That is a gap of about 38 percentage points in internet use. Rural women who do go online use it less often, with 53.2% online daily against 68.4% of urban women, and 14.2% going online less than weekly.

Regional gaps: South West and North West at opposite ends

The geopolitical zones are widely spread. The South West is the most connected, with 87.8% phone ownership and 69.8% recent internet use. The South South (59.8%) and the South East (47.4%) follow. In the North, internet use is far lower: 34.0% in the North Central, 15.4% in the North East and just 13.5% in the North West. That puts the South West about 56 points ahead of the North West.

The North West also has the largest share of internet users who had not used it at all in the past month (5.0%), and the lowest daily use among the zones (51.2%). It is also the most populous zone in the sample (7,835 women), so its low connectivity weighs heavily on the national average.

Education and wealth: the sharpest divides

Education shows the widest gaps in the table. Among women with no education, 38.1% own a phone, only 3.8% own a smartphone and just 1.9% used the internet in the last year. Among women with more than secondary education, those figures are 98.3%, 90.7% and 90.0%. That is a gap of about 88 points in internet use. Secondary-educated women sit in between, at 45.6%.

Wealth tells the same story. In the lowest wealth quintile, 30.1% of women own a phone, 2.3% own a smartphone and 2.1% used the internet. In the highest quintile, the figures are 91.3%, 77.4% and 77.4%. Internet use rises with each step up the ladder: 2.1%, 6.8%, 23.7%, 51.2% and 77.4%. Daily use among those online also rises with wealth, from 46.0% in the lowest quintile to 75.7% in the highest.

A caution on reading the frequency columns: the number of internet users in some groups is very small. Only 137 women with no education and 87 women in the lowest wealth quintile are in that part of the table, so their frequency-of-use percentages are much less reliable.

What it means

The data points to a digital divide that overlaps with other forms of inequality. The women least likely to be online are rural, poorer, less educated and living in the North. Those same women are often the ones who could benefit most from online information on health, finance and education. Closing the gap will likely take more than cheaper data. It means affordable smartphones, wider rural network coverage and digital skills training, ideally alongside efforts to raise girls’ education.

For now, the national picture is one of a country where owning a phone is nearly universal among the well-off and educated, while for millions of other women it is still a basic handset, with the internet out of reach.

Background characteristic	Owns any mobile phone	Owns a smart phone	Ever used the internet	Used the internet in the last 12 months	Number of women	Almost every day	At least once a week	Less than once a week	Not at all	Total	Number of women (internet users, last 12 months)
Age
15-19	43.1	22.5	29.3	27.6	5,031	54.9	29.1	13.5	2.5	100.0	1,388
20-24	70.9	41.5	41.8	39.4	3,972	70.0	21.0	7.2	1.8	100.0	1,566
25-29	72.4	39.4	39.4	37.6	4,261	66.8	24.2	7.4	1.6	100.0	1,603
30-34	73.2	38.1	38.2	36.3	3,441	66.6	25.5	6.8	1.1	100.0	1,250
35-39	74.2	38.2	38.2	36.1	3,109	66.7	24.3	7.3	1.8	100.0	1,122
40-44	72.3	35.7	34.5	32.9	2,320	66.1	24.4	8.8	0.7	100.0	764
45-49	70.1	33.1	31.4	30.1	1,681	63.4	27.7	7.0	1.9	100.0	506
Residence
Urban	81.2	53.4	56.0	53.6	11,965	68.4	23.3	6.8	1.5	100.0	6,413
Rural	50.9	16.5	16.4	15.1	11,850	53.2	30.5	14.2	2.2	100.0	1,787
Zone
North Central	67.7	31.1	35.0	34.0	3,974	61.9	26.2	10.8	1.2	100.0	1,353
North East	55.6	18.3	17.1	15.4	3,394	69.0	20.6	8.9	1.6	100.0	523
North West	49.8	17.1	16.0	13.5	7,835	51.2	31.2	12.6	5.0	100.0	1,055
South East	79.2	47.7	49.6	47.4	2,128	58.9	30.1	9.7	1.3	100.0	1,009
South South	83.7	54.8	61.9	59.8	2,662	66.1	24.9	7.6	1.4	100.0	1,592
South West	87.8	69.9	71.0	69.8	3,821	73.1	20.6	5.5	0.9	100.0	2,667
Education
No education¹	38.1	3.8	2.4	1.9	7,345	41.2	34.8	19.3	4.7	100.0	137
Primary	64.3	14.7	13.0	11.7	2,912	42.2	35.6	18.7	3.5	100.0	340
Secondary	76.0	44.6	48.7	45.6	10,094	56.3	30.9	10.6	2.2	100.0	4,605
More than secondary	98.3	90.7	91.6	90.0	3,464	81.5	14.3	3.6	0.6	100.0	3,117
Wealth quintile
Lowest	30.1	2.3	2.6	2.1	4,199	46.0	28.6	17.9	7.6	100.0	87
Second	49.8	8.9	8.1	6.8	4,486	37.2	38.1	20.6	4.1	100.0	306
Middle	68.0	25.5	26.3	23.7	4,828	53.0	31.0	13.4	2.7	100.0	1,145
Fourth	82.5	50.3	53.8	51.2	5,013	57.5	30.6	9.6	2.4	100.0	2,566
Highest	91.3	77.4	79.5	77.4	5,291	75.7	18.5	5.1	0.7	100.0	4,095
Total	66.1	35.0	36.3	34.4	23,815	65.1	24.9	8.4	1.7	100.0	8,199

Source: Table 2.15, Nigeria MIS 2025.