In the second quarter of 2024, Nigeria’s real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was derived from 19.78% of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) activities.
This was revealed in the Q2 2024 GDP figures that the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) made public on Monday.
There has been a slight increase in this contribution compared to the 19.54% recorded in the same period last year.
Additionally, the sector saw a rise in contributions from quarter to quarter as compared to the previous quarter. According to NBS data, in Q1 2024, ICT accounted for 17.89% of the real GDP.
NBS defines the ICT sector as publishing, motion picture, sound recording, music production, broadcasting, and telecommunications and information services.
The ICT sector recorded a growth rate of 4.44% year-on-year in the quarter under review. This was driven largely by activities in the telecommunications subsector, which contributed 16.36% to the GDP in the real term.
According to NBS, the telecom industry was the third-largest contributor to the real GDP in Q2 2024, coming behind only crop production and trade industries, contributing 20.35% and 16.39%, respectively.
The telecom industry, which is dominated by mobile network operators such as MTN, Globacom, Airtel, 9mobile, and Internet Service Providers (ISPs), is also driving many activities in every other sector of the economy.
The closest sub-sector to telecoms in the ICT sector in terms of contribution was Broadcasting, which added 2.54%
The NBS data further revealed that the ICT sector contributed 14.19% to the total Nominal GDP in the second quarter of 2024, lower than the rate of 14.83% recorded in the same quarter of 2023 and higher than the 13.12% it contributed in the preceding quarter.
In nominal terms, sector growth was recorded at 11.86% (year-on-year), a 29.81% point decrease from the rate of 41.67% recorded in the same quarter of 2023 and 2.08% points lower than the rate recorded in the preceding quarter.
In a June whitepaper, the Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, stated that the ICT sector made significant contributions to the economy between Q3 2023 and Q1 2024.
“Over the last three quarters (Q3, 2023 to Q1, 2024), representing President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s time in office, the available data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS, June 2024) on the GDP of the Information and Communication sectors show that the nominal value of the sectors’ contribution grew from N7.1 trillion in Q3, 2023 to N8.35 trillion in Q4, 2023.
“Similar to the performance of many key sectors, it was followed by a “patterned fall” in Q1, 2024 to N7.86 trillion,” he said.
According to him, the growth in the ICT sector is driven by the ambitious agenda of Tinubu’s administration for the digital economy as manifested in the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation & Digital Economy’s Strategic Blueprint, which is to enable Nigeria’s economic growth through enhanced productivity, facilitated by technological innovation.
He said the Blueprint gave birth to several initiatives such as the 3 Million Technical Talent (3MTT) and investment in research initiatives like the AI Collective and Fourth Industrial Revolution Technology Application (4IRTA).
He added that the initiatives are geared we are deepening the quantity and quality of our workforce while stimulating our local capacity to maximize the opportunities that emerging technologies offer to grow the country’s digital economy.
