Activities in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) contributed 19.78% to Nigeria’s real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Q2 2024.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) disclosed this in the Q2 2024 GDP statistics released on Monday.
This shows a marginal increase in contribution when compared to the 19.54% recorded in the same period last year.
Quarter on quarter, the sector also recorded an increase in contribution when compared with the preceding quarter. The NBS data showed that ICT contributed 17.89% to the real GDP in Q1 2024.
According to NBS, the ICT sector comprises the four activities of Telecommunications and Information Services; Publishing; Motion Picture, Sound Recording, and Music Production; and Broadcasting.
More insights
The ICT sector in the quarter under review recorded a growth rate of 4.44% year-on-year. This was driven largely by activities in the telecommunications sub-sector, 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, which contributed 20.35% and 16.39% respectively.
The telecom industry, which is dominated by mobile network operators including MTN, Globacom, Airtel, 9mobile, and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) is also driving a lot of 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%
Nominal GDP
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, the sector growth was recorded at 11.86% (year-on-year), a 29.81% points 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.
ICT performance under Tinubu
In a Whitepaper released in June, the Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, the ICT sector has 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 maximise the opportunities that emerging technologies offer to grow the country’s digital economy.
