Telecoms sector contributes N1.5trn to Nigeria’s GDP as Nigerians use 40m terabytes monthly

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has declared that the Telecommunication sector contributed N1.54 trillion to Nigerias Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the second quarter of 2017.

This information was contained in the address by NCC’s Executive Vice-Chairman, Prof. Umar Danbatta while receiving the visiting Chairperson of Liberia Telecommunications Authority (LTA), Madam Angelique Weeks.

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Dambatta said the figure was extracted from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) report which shows that the telecommunications sector is responsible for 9.5 per cent of the GDP in the second quarter of the year.

It would be recalled that the National Bureau of Statistics recently released its second quarter GDP report which confirmed Nigeria's exit from recession after it plunged early 2016.

Dambatta stated further that the figure represents a 6.68 per cent increase from the first quarter’s contribution of N1.45 trillion.

“We are very proud of the remarkable contributions the sector is making.

“Even in the recent times when the whole economy was facing challenges, the sector has remained resilient and stable,” the NCC boss said in a statement.

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On data consumption, Dambatta revealed that there has been a remarkable increase as Nigerians now consume 40 million terabytes of data on a monthly basis.

He also expressed optimism that the country will soon witness massive ICT transformation when the excess data capacity at landing point in Lagos is deployed to the hinterland through licensing of Infrastructure Companies (InfraCos).

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Dambatta puts the broadband penetration in the country currently at 21 per cent with Nigeria getting closer to 30 per cent penetration in 2018 in line with the national broadband target.