Digital economy to generate $88b through financial services 

Financial services within the Nigerian digital sector have the capacity to generate up to $88billion, and create about three million new jobs over the next 10 years.
Meanwhile, a global leading ICT solution provider, Huawei Technologies, has expressed its readiness to deploy latest ICT technologies such as 4.5G, Internet of Things (IoT), and digital services to drive the digital economy in Nigeria, and in other African countries.

The Managing Director of Huawei Technologies Nigeria, Tank Li, who disclosed this at Smart Cities Summit Nigeria, on Wednesday in Abuja, noted that ICT-enabled technologies and solutions have the potential to serve as a major accelerator for the Smart Nigeria Digital Economy and its sustainable development goal.

He noted that McKinsey Global Institute says in a report last year that IoT could have a total economic impact of $4trillion to $11trillion a year by 2025, stressing that Internet speed and affordability are still issues that plague the adoption of IoT.

Li observed that the development and widespread application of digital technologies have transformed human lives in a profound way, adding that data flow and economic development have become the big trends of modern time.

According to him, Digital economy applies digital technologies, revolutionising the whole economic environment and activities by ensuring that all information and commercial activities are digitised.

He said: “We project in the near future a digital economy that will bring about enormous changes in society. We simply have no way of knowing how deep and far-reaching these changes will be. However, we can be sure of one thing, that ICT will be the cornerstone of this digital economy.”

Li noted that Huawei has grown into a Fortune 500 company with annual sales of over $75billion, adding that the firm had invested over $6million in Nigeria, and established the Innovation and Experience Centre built on 500 square meters, including the data centre on the ground floor, to serve Nigerian customers.

“In 1999, Huawei entered Nigeria, and over the last 17 years of development and growth, we have become a big family with over 1,200 staff of which 70 per cent are locals.”