IT & Telecoms

Over the past decade Nigeria’s ICT industry has grown to become one of the largest and most dynamic in Africa, with total mobile internet subscribers topping 30.9m at the end of the second quarter of 2012, accounting for the majority of the country’s 48.4m internet users. While the government has taken a prominent position on driving basic penetration, private operators have been influential in expanding local content and buttressing demand, particularly on the corporate side. Mobile phones dominate the telecoms sector, with four GSM operators providing services for more than 114m subscribers as of July 2013. Data services are considered a key driver of future growth in the sector, though insufficient bandwidth and low data speeds are challenges. To this end, local operators have been investing in infrastructure to improve quality of service and expand coverage areas. This chapter contains interviews with Omobola Johnson, Minister of Communication Technology; Pfungwa Serima, CEO, SAP Africa; and Manoj Kohli, Managing Director and CEO International, Bharti Airtel.