By Emmanuel Elebeke, with Agency Report

ABUJA—The telecommunications industry contributed eight percent to gross domestic product, GDP, and recorded five percent growth in the last three months, despite economic crunch, according to a government report.

The sector is said to have sustained the growth beginning from March, despite the crunch in the economy for the first time in more than a decade.

These were contained in the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, NBS, recent report. It added that the economy contracted by 0.4 percent in the period.

Nigerian mobile phone customer numbers have also shown rapid growth over the past 10 years as handsets became more affordable and data services increased.

Nigeria had 151 million subscribers at the end of last year, up from 19.5 million in 2005.

“With the oil sector having crashed over the last months, telecoms should be outperforming the other sectors,” Head ICT analyst at BMI Research in London, Amy Cameron, said yesterday.