(3 minutes read)
Nigeria and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa added US$170 billion to the region’s economy in 2022 in the mobile sub-sector. The sub-sector made a substantial contribution to the funding of the public sector, with around US$20 billion raised through taxes on the sector. A large contribution was driven by services, VAT, sales taxes, and excise duties, generating US$10 billion, followed by corporate taxes on profits at US$5 billion.
The Global System for Mobile Telecommunications Association (GSMA), which revealed this in its ‘2023 Mobile Economy Report for Sub-Saharan Africa,’ said in 2022 mobile technologies and services generated 8.1% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) across SSA. In absolute terms, that amounted to around US$170 billion of economic value added. The greatest benefits came from productivity effects reaching US$110 billion, followed by mobile operators, which generated US$40 billion.
GSMA, which is a global umbrella body for telecom companies, projected that by 2030, mobile’s contribution will reach approximately US$210 billion in SSA, driven mostly by improvements in productivity and efficiency brought about by the increased take-up of mobile services. The telecom body said mobile operators and the wider ecosystem provided direct employment to around 1.4 million people across the region. In addition, it said the economic activity in the ecosystem generated more than two million jobs in other sectors, meaning that around 3.5 million jobs were directly or indirectly supported.
Read Also:
Coming specifically on Nigeria, the report said that the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into Nigeria’s telecoms sector, though dropped by 47% in 2022 at $399.9 million, the sector’s contribution to the GDP in Nigeria increased from 12.61% in the fourth quarter of 2021 to 13.55% in the fourth quarter of 2022. Meanwhile, GSMA said as of 2022, around 15% of the population in the region is not covered by mobile broadband networks. It said despite much progress, the coverage gap remained significant, especially in rural and remote areas.
