Hundreds of millions of women across the developing world are still locked out of the mobile internet. Nigeria, new data shows, is one of the starkest examples.
The GSMA's newly released Mobile Gender Gap Report 2026 finds that women in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) remain 12% less likely than men to use mobile internet.
That gap translates into 810 million women still offline, compared with 595 million men.
A Slow Crawl Forward
The ninth edition of the report draws on more than 16,000 face-to-face surveys across 14 LMICs. It shows the gender gap narrowing only marginally, continuing a gradual trend that has held since 2022.
The pattern is not new. A year earlier, GSMA data put the gap at 14%, after global figures had stalled for two straight years.
Where the Gap Bites Hardest
The 810 million unconnected women are not spread evenly. More than two-thirds live in just two regions — Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
Rural communities fare far worse than cities across nearly every LMIC surveyed.
| Region | Mobile Internet Gender Gap | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Sub-Saharan Africa | 26% | Widest gap globally; smartphone gender gap at 22% |
| South Asia | 25% | Second-widest; large rural-urban divide |
| Middle East & North Africa | 15% | Unchanged from 2024 |
| Rural vs. Urban (LMIC average) | 2–3x wider in rural areas | Most severe in SSA, South Asia, MENA |
The report points to two leading barriers: the affordability of internet-enabled handsets, and gaps in digital literacy and skills.
Nigeria's Numbers Stand Out
Nigeria sits among the five countries with the widest mobile internet gender gaps surveyed in the report. This is despite near-universal mobile phone ownership nationwide.
Women in the country are 26% less likely than men to use mobile internet. 56% of Nigerian men go online via mobile, against just 42% of women.
The biggest drop-off happens between awareness of mobile internet and actually owning an internet-capable device, according to the GSMA. The fix, then, is less about persuasion and more about getting affordable smartphones into women's hands.
For households weighing that exact tradeoff, our guide to the best budget phones in Nigeria breaks down low-cost smartphone options that meet basic internet needs without straining a tight budget.
There is a silver lining. Nigeria was among six countries where the gap actually narrowed between 2024 and 2025, as women adopted mobile internet faster than men did.
Over that period, women's ownership of basic feature phones fell by 10 percentage points, while smartphone ownership rose by the same margin.
That shift is unfolding against a backdrop of rising telecom spending nationwide. Nigerians collectively spent $5.6 billion on airtime and data last year, according to recent telecom spending data.
For a finance-focused audience, the connection runs deeper than connectivity statistics. Mobile internet access is now the primary on-ramp to digital banking, mobile money, and savings tools — meaning every woman left offline has fewer practical paths to formal financial services.
The Money on the Table
This isn't framed as a social issue alone. GSMA modelling estimates that closing the mobile internet gender gap across LMICs between 2023 and 2030 could add $1.3 trillion in additional GDP.
Closing the mobile ownership gap could separately unlock $230 billion in extra revenue for the mobile industry over the same period.
Claire Sibthorpe, the GSMA's Head of Digital Inclusion, warned that emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence risk widening rather than narrowing existing inequities if digital inclusion efforts don't accelerate.
As digital and financial services move further onto mobile-first platforms, women without smartphones or mobile data risk falling further behind. That includes access to banking, healthcare information, and online income opportunities.
What's Being Done
The GSMA's Connected Women Commitment Initiative has signed up more than 50 mobile network operators to formal targets aimed at narrowing the gap.
Since 2016, those commitments have helped bring upwards of 90 million additional women onto mobile internet or mobile money services.
The 2026 report itself was funded by the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Sweden's International Development Cooperation Agency, with additional research support from the GSMA and the Gates Foundation.
The data points in the right direction, just slowly. For a country like Nigeria, where phone ownership is nearly universal but internet access still splits sharply along gender lines, the practical fix is affordability — cheaper devices, cheaper data, and targeted access for women who already know what mobile internet offers but simply can't afford to get online.
Until that changes, hundreds of millions of women will keep watching the digital economy from the outside.
Sources: GSMA Newsroom, "810 million women still not using mobile internet in low- and middle-income countries, compared to 595 million men," published June 10, 2026. Additional reporting referenced from Businessday NG and Technology Times Nigeria.
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