Indications emerged that investment in the mobile telecoms industry would hit $166 billion and a total of 6.1 million jobs will be created by year 2020 so says the Minister of Communications Technology, Mr Adebayo Shittu. According to Mr. Shittu, 2.7 million direct jobs would be created, while another 3.4 million indirect jobs would also come from the sector.
Shittu who declared open the ”2015 Emerge Tech Summit” in Abuja stated that the mobile industry employed two million people directly as at last year, noting that by 2020 an additional 700, 000 jobs would be generated by the sector.
He said;“By 2020, it is expected that the mobile market would be worth $166 billion or N33 trillion and this represents eight per cent of the region’s GDP (gross domestic product) as opposed to 5.7 per cent of GDP in 2014.
“At the end of 2014, Nigeria alone had about 136 million registered lines from the four major operators ( Etisalat, MTN, Glo, and Airtel). Nigerian telecoms operators accounted for 35 per cent of the total Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into Nigeria in 2014 alone.”
Mr Shittu said following the commitment of the present administration to invest massively in infrastructure facilities as a way of creating jobs for the youths, the ball is now in their courts to “galvanise their lofty ideas into profitable ventures in ICT, web development, mobile applications, software, internet security, cloud computing and microchip processing developers.”