$5.2 Trillion, Mobile Sector Adds To Global Economy
In 2022, mobile technologies and services generated five per cent of global GDP, earnings that amounted to $5.2 trillion of economic value added. The greatest gains came from productivity effects, which reached $3.5 trillion, followed by mobile operators, which generated $650 billion.
The Global System for Mobile telecommunications Association (GSMA) in ‘The Mobile Economy Report’ released on Monday, said the mobile sector also made a substantial contribution to the funding of the public sector, with around $530 billion raised through taxes on the sector.
The biggest driver was services VAT, sales taxes and excise duties, which generated $210 billion, followed by employment taxes and social security, which generated $160 billion.
Toeing the growth trajectory, GSMA believes by 2025, mobile’s contribution will reach $5.6 trillion and by 2030 will exceed $6 trillion as countries around the world increasingly benefit from the improvements in productivity and efficiency brought about by the increased take-up of mobile services.
According to NBS, the ICT sector is composed of four sub-sectors including telecommunications and Information services; Publishing; Motion Picture; Sound Recording and Music production and Broadcasting. The Q4 2022 leaped by 0.87 per cent, when compared to 15.35 per cent recorded in Q3, 2022 and 1.01 per cent, when compared to the same period in 2021.
To the bureau, for 2022, ICT total contribution to the country’s GDP was 16.51 per cent as against the 15.51 per cent of 2021. Further analysis showed that the ICT sector’s real growth rate of 10.35 per cent, this was boosted by the activities in the telecommunications sub-sector, which added 13.35 per cent to the GDP in real terms.
Speaking on the mobile industry’s impact on the Sustainable Development Goals, GSMA noted that in 2016, the mobile industry became the first sector to commit to the 17 UN SDGs. It noted that each year since then, the GSMA has measured the impact of the mobile industry across all SDGs.
According to the GSMA, there are now 11 SDGs where mobile’s contribution is over 50, compared to six SDGs in 2020 and none in 2015.
It said the mobile industry continues to achieve its highest impact on SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, driven by the reach of mobile networks and take-up of mobile Internet services.
The report also noted that there was also an improvement in the affordability of mobile data and devices. This comes after affordability worsened in 2020 because of the decline in per capita income due to the COVID-19 pandemic.