NCC headquarters in Abuja

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on Thursday disclosed that the Nigeria’s telecommunications sector contributed N1, 580 billion to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the second quarter of 2016.

The commission said in a statement that the sector’s contribution was made known by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in its report, titled: “’Nigerian Telecommunications (Services) Sector Report Q2 2016’’.

It said that the figure represented 9.8 per cent to the GDP and an increase of 1.0 per cent, when compared to the previous quarter of the same year.

According to the report, the second quarter’s contribution is the highest made by the telecommunication sector in the rebased period.

It said that the growth in the sector had remained robust, when compared to the total GDP.

The report stated that however due to differing seasonal patterns, the contribution from telecommunications were usually the largest in the second quarter.

It added that although growth in the telecommunications sector remained positive, in contrast with the economy as a whole, year on year growth nevertheless dropped in real terms from 5.0 per cent in the previous quarter to 1.5%, the lowest rate since 2011 Q3.

It said that the share of telecommunications in total real GDP had declined throughout 2010 to 2014, but for the last five quarters growth in telecommunications had been higher, “meaning the trend has reversed’’.

The report said that the total number of subscribers had increased rapidly over the past decade.

“At the end of 2005, there were 19,519,154 subscribers, but by the end of 2015, there were 151,017,244, which is equivalent to an increase of 13,149,809 every year.

“However, growth has been declining more recently, possibly as a result of high market penetration, leaving less room for large expansion.

“In June 2016, the end of the second quarter, there were 149,803,714 subscribers compared with 148,775,410 in June 2015, which represented an increase of 0.69 per cent.

“The yearly increase in total subscriber number has been decreasing steadily for the past year, in June 2015, the year on year increase was 12.05 per cent,’’ it said.

The report said that after falling between January and April 2016, the number of subscribers began to increase again.

“And June, the number was 0.71 per cent higher than at the end of the first quarter in March,’’ it said. (NAN)