The Information and Communications Technology sector posted a 31.63 per cent year-on-year growth in nominal terms in the first quarter of 2025, according to the latest GDP figures from the National Bureau of Statistics.

This represents a sharp rise of 28.23 percentage points from the 3.40 per cent recorded in Q1 2024, and a 13.67-point increase compared to Q4 2024—highlighting strong momentum in the sector’s nominal expansion.

ICT’s share of nominal GDP also climbed to 10.29 per cent in Q1 2025, up from 9.25 per cent in the same period last year and 8.55 per cent in the previous quarter, reaffirming its role as a key driver of Nigeria’s economic growth.

In real terms, adjusted for inflation, the ICT sector grew by 7.40 per cent year-on-year in Q1 2025—an improvement of 3.36 percentage points compared to the same period in 2024.

However, real growth declined by -8.86 per cent on a quarter-on-quarter basis, reflecting the usual seasonal slowdown following the end-of-year surge in digital consumption and service demand during Q4.

Despite the quarterly decline, the ICT sector’s contribution to real GDP rose to 10.59% in Q1 2025, up from 10.17% in the same period last year and 9.32% in Q4 2024.

According to the NBS, the ICT sector comprises Telecommunications and Information Services, Publishing, Motion Picture, Sound Recording and Music Production, and Broadcasting. Among these, telecommunications continues to be the dominant and most stable driver, supported by rising broadband penetration, growing data usage, and an increase in mobile subscriptions.

Following the rebasing of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product with 2019 as the new base year, previous quarterly GDP figures were adjusted to align with the updated annual estimates.

This benchmarking ensured consistency between the old series and the newly rebased data.

As a result, a new set of quarterly GDP series was produced, serving as the basis for comparisons with the Q1 2025 estimates.

The NBS also revealed that the rebased nominal GDP at basic prices for 2019 showed a 41.7% increase compared to the 2019 nominal GDP calculated using the former 2010 base year.