Internet economy to contribute $36 billion to Nigeria’s GDP by 2025
By Ibidunni Banjoko
Juliet Ehimuan, Director, West Africa Google, has said that the Internet economy will contribute $36.5 billion to Nigeria’s GDP by 2025.
She said this at the first day of Zenith Bank’s hybrid tech fair, which took place at Eko Hotels and Suites, Lagos, on 22 and 23 November, 2022.
According to her, over 100 million people are online and about 97% of them are using mobile phones, which gives rise to a lot of developments and enhancements across multiple sectors.
“Today, we see emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning that used to be very futuristic being applied to create solutions to local problems. I often say that Africa’s biggest challenges will not be solved by traditional methods of the past,” she said.
Ehimuan noted that technological solutions really provide a way to solve problems faster and more cost-effectively, because with the phone people can solve issues around financial inclusion, predict climate conditions, detect diseases, and so on. She said it’s a really exciting time to be in the technology space and to be looking at some of these developments.
She further said: “It’s important to create a picture when talking about the digital economy to capture the different elements that we think about. With digital economy at the core, you have players that contribute to the amplified economy, have digital platforms that people can engage with, have digital entrepreneurs and developers that are building apps, and solutions that people can use to engage with the platforms. Obviously, digital skills are really important to be able to leverage these technologies and everything right on digital infrastructure.”
She mentioned that digital technology is being used in the provision of government services, which has a huge scope for expansion, and of course, with the private sector.
“The outer circle really touches on some different sectoral applications; for example, with digital transport today we have the benefit of access to digital maps like Google Maps that not only provide directions but also traffic information; we are able to call cars to service amongst others,” she said.
She continued: “We see real practical examples right here in Nigeria of all solutions being created in these spaces with the use of technology, and also some of the economic realities around that because we know that the fuel of e-commerce or the fuel of commerce can really help accelerate growth.
“The fintech sector has been very active and we’ve seen the birth of a number of unicorns in that space. It may interest you to know that about 63% of all the funding to start-ups in Nigeria last year was to the fintech space across Africa. We had about $4 billion in investments last year and 1.37 billion out of that was to Nigerian start-ups while 63% of that was to the fintech companies.
“The opportunities for innovation are enormous in that sector, even beyond payments and lending which would be the most popular services and probably the services a lot of us would be forced to when we think about that space. At the moment, we have about 250 FinTech’s in Nigeria. That may seem like a lot or not, but to put that in context, it’s like one fintech to 700,000 Nigerians. In comparison, you have in India, one fintech to 200,000 people and in the U.S., it’s one fintech to 38,000 people and in Europe, it is one fintech to 27,000 people. That shows that with all the activities we haven’t even scratched the surface,” she revealed.
Ehimuan affirmed that there is such a huge scope and opportunity for more growth and advancement.
“It is great to see the innovation in the financial space and organizations. These innovations have impacted human life. When we talk about opportunities, we still have a huge percentage of the unbanked population which is about 55%. At the moment, over 90% of the solutions and investment is around payments and lending, but when you think about insurance and other dimensions, there’s still a huge room for growth,” she concluded.
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