MTN has highlighted several everyday smartphone features that can significantly increase mobile data consumption, urging customers to better understand how their devices and applications use data in the background.
Speaking during a live webinar on Facebook, MTN explained that while many subscribers associate data usage mainly with active browsing or streaming, a considerable amount of mobile data is consumed automatically by smartphone applications without users necessarily noticing.
According to the company, one of the biggest contributors to data consumption is the autoplay feature on video-sharing platforms such as TikTok and YouTube.
MTN noted that videos begin playing immediately after users open these applications because content is often preloaded in the background using mobile data before the user actively watches the video.
The company explained that this background loading enhances the user experience by reducing waiting times, but it also results in data being consumed even before users interact with the content.
MTN also identified ‘background app refresh’ as another major source of mobile data usage. The company explained that applications which deliver notifications—including email, social media, messaging and shopping apps—regularly connect to the internet to check for new information and send alerts.
According to MTN, every notification received on a smartphone requires some level of internet connectivity, meaning data is continually being used in the background throughout the day.
The telecommunications provider further pointed to the growing number of e-commerce applications, such as Temu and AliExpress, which frequently send promotional notifications while continuously refreshing content in the background.
Although each individual data request may appear insignificant, MTN said the combined effect of multiple applications performing similar background activities can substantially increase a customer’s overall mobile data consumption over time.
Discussing the relative data demands of popular digital platforms, MTN noted that YouTube remains one of the most data-intensive applications because of its video streaming capabilities. It said TikTok also consumes significant amounts of data, followed by Instagram.
Facebook, the company explained, generally consumes less data because much of its content remains text-based, despite the introduction of Reels. While Facebook Reels use additional data, MTN indicated that they typically consume less data than comparable content on YouTube and TikTok.
The webinar formed part of MTN’s ongoing digital education initiative aimed at helping customers better understand their data usage and adopt habits that can improve the efficiency of their mobile internet consumption.
