By Emmanuel Elebeke

A quarterly survey conducted on the composition of Gross Domestic Product, GDP in the third quarter of 2014 shows that Nigeria’s Information and Communication Technology, ICT sector grew the Nigerian economy by 17.66 percent, year-on-year, in the third quarter of 2014.

The Wired World: A graphic representation of the Internet

Statistician General of the Federation, Dr. Yemi Kale, has just indicated that the sectoral growth up by 5.68 percentage points from third Quarter of 2013 and 6.55 percentage points from the previous quarter of 2014.

The survey, according to NBS, was on the composition of GDP in the third quarter of 2014 and the corresponding quarter in 2013.

The Information and Communication sector comprises of four activities namely; Telecommunication and Information, Publishing; Motion Pictures, Sound Recording and Music Production.

However, within the sector, the report showed that Motion Pictures Sound Recording and Music Production grew the fastest, growing by 29.68 per cent.

Its findings were that Quarter-on Quarter, the sector slowed by -23.35 percent with Publishing, and Motion Pictures, Sound recording and Music production growing the fastest by -11.76 percent and -12.21 percent respectively.

Meanwhile, NBS maintained that the contribution of Information and Communication to nominal GDP stood at 9.51 percent in the third Quarter of 2014, while real growth in the third Quarter of 2014 stood at 8.30 percent, year-on-year, up by 1.16 percentage points from the corresponding period of 2013 and also higher by 0.35 percentage points from the rate recorded during the second Quarter of 2014.

From all indication, the report showed that telecommunications was the major driver of growth in the sector, growing by 6.25 per cent, though by Quarter-on-quarter, the sector slowed by 11.81 percent.

The contribution of Information and Communication to GDP in real terms was 9.58 percent in third Quarter of 2014, compared to 9.39 percent in the third Quarter of 2013 and 11.80 percent in the second Quarter of 2014.