MTN Nigeria has urged Nigerians to optimise their mobile phone settings to manage data consumption and prevent unnecessary depletion of their data bundles.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of MTN Nigeria, Karl Toriola, gave the advice at the ‘Data on Trial’ experience organised by MTN Nigeria in Abuja on Monday, October 26, 2026.
The event was meant to address public concerns about data consumption and pricing in Nigeria.
Toriola said many factors were responsible for MTN data pricing including operational costs face by mobile telecommunication operators.
According to him, operators incur significant expenses in providing electricity, transportation, and other infrastructure required to maintain telecommunications sites.
He said MTN spent about N4.05 trillion on power in the preceding year, highlighting the cost pressures affecting telecommunications operations.
Toriola stated: “Even within the context of data being perceived as more expensive in Nigeria, the UK is the example I was giving.
“Please, understand that in this country, as well as some other African countries, we are providing power and transportation to all our sites.
“The cost of electricity, for instance, is higher here than in the UK.”
He explained that Nigerian operators deployed similar telecommunications equipment and technologies used in Europe and the United States, including Fourth-Generation (4G) and Fifth-Generation (5G) networks.
The MTN CEO said “Data on Trial” was designed to enlighten consumers on how phone settings, online activities and application preferences influenced data consumption.
The General Manager of Network Performance and Quality Assurance at MTN Nigeria, Mike Ndukwe, said video streaming, social media activities and automatic downloads were among the factors contributing to rapid data consumption.
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Ndukwe explained that requesting a video on TikTok required relatively little data, while downloading and streaming the content consumed significantly more, depending on its resolution and duration.
Ndukwe said a 15-second TikTok video could consume between two megabytes (MB) and 20MB, depending on its resolution, adding that high-definition videos generally consumed more data than standard-definition content.
According to him, 4G and 5G networks supported higher-quality video streaming, which could increase data consumption when applications automatically selected higher resolutions.
Ndukwe said WhatsApp users could also experience rapid data depletion through automatic downloads, status updates, media shared in groups and chat backups.
He advised subscribers to disable automatic media downloads, restrict background data usage and configure applications to download large files only when connected to Wi-Fi.
The MTN official recommended enabling data-saving features on TikTok and other social media platforms, reducing video resolution and disabling automatic playback where possible.
Ndukwe said MTN provided tools, including the MyMTN app, to enable customers to monitor data usage in real time and receive alerts.
Ndukwe added that the company regularly sensitised subscribers on data-saving measures and offered MTN FiberX as an unlimited data option for customers with high data requirements, subject to applicable terms.
Ndukwe said data depletion generally resulted from users’ online activities or phone settings rather than unexplained deductions, urging subscribers to understand how their devices and applications consumed data.
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