E-payments solutions responsible for e-commerce growth in Nigeria – NITDA

The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) announced that deeper broadband penetration in Nigeria and upgraded e-payments solutions were responsible for the growth of e-commerce in Nigeria and the sector is expected to grow 14% annually.

This was disclosed by Mr Kasim Sodangi, the National Coordinator, Office for Nigeria Content Development in ICT (ONC), a NITDA subsidiary, at the 2020 e-Commerce and Marketing Online Seminar for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Abuja on Wednesday.

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Mr. Sodangi disclosed that Nigeria’s e-commerce sector is expected to grow 14% annually, citing a report by McKinsey that Nigeria’s major e-commerce sectors are mostly retail components

“The e-Commerce in Nigeria is determined by the population which is about 200million, with 132million of them using the internet. This number is likely to increase with internet penetration, which is expected to be at 65.2 per cent by 2025.

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“There are about 300,000 online purchases daily compared to the previous 30,000 witnessed in previous years,” he said.

He added that the main demographic for online shopping in Nigeria are young people between the ages of 25-35, while 68% of shopping was done through a mobile phone.

“Going by trends, social media may become the most dominating form of e-commerce and very important in our journey to deepen e-commerce in Nigeria,” he said.

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What you should know 

Nairametrics reported in August during the last GDP disclosure that Telecommunications — a sub-sector under the Information and Communication sector, reported an 18.1% GDP growth rate in the second quarter of the year and is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the country. The sector nearly doubled the 9.71% GDP growth rate recorded in the first quarter of 2020.

The National Bureau of Statistics reported that Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contracted by -6.1% in the second quarter of 2020.