ICT Sector Contributes 15.97% To Nigeria’s Q3 GDP

The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector contributed 15.97 per cent to Nigeria’s real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Q3 2023.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), who disclosed this in the Q3 GDP statistics released on Friday, stated that this figure showed an increase in contribution when compared to the 15.35 per cent recorded in the same period last year.

The ICT sector comprises the four activities of Telecommunications and Information Services; Publishing; Motion Picture, Sound Recording, and Music Production; and Broadcasting.

The sector also recorded a growth rate of 6.69 per cent in real terms, year-on-year in Q3, 2023, NBS disclosed, while attributing the growth to the activities in the telecommunications sub-sector, which contributed 13.50 per cent to the GDP in the real term.

“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,” NBS averred.

On nominal GDP, NBS data showed that the ICT sector contributed 11.57 per cent to the total Nominal GDP in the 2023 third quarter, higher than the rate of 9.58 per cent recorded in the same quarter of 2022 and lower than the 14.83 per cent it contributed in the preceding quarter.

“On a quarter-on-quarter, the sector exhibited a growth of -10.30 per cent in real terms. 

Of total real GDP, the sector contributed 15.97 per cent in the 2023 third quarter, higher than in the same quarter of the previous year in which it represented 15.35 per cent and lower than the preceding quarter in which it represented 19.54 per cent,” NBS added.