Online Transactions To Hit N168b By 4th Qtr
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Director for Public
Affairs , Mr. Tony Ojobo has disclosed that Nigeria’s online
transactions will soon hit well over $1billion (about N168 billion) at
the end of 2014 owing to the huge traffic of people doing transactions
regularly on the internet.
Ojobo ,who spoke exclusively to Daily Sun in Enugu yesterday (Thursday)at the three day annual national conference of the Nigerian Computer Society (NCS), IT umbrella body for Computer professionals,holding at the Nike Lake Resort Center noted that lots of people want to do things online today including study centres, hotels, publishing houses, online shops, stressing that all of these require huge data requirement.
He further disclosed that when the country will experience broadband revolution, through the infracos providing the infrastructure, the capacity will boost businesses because “If we are currently at 10 percent increase in broadband ‘s penetration, you will have at least 3.8 percent increase in the Gross Domestic Product, GDP. Imagine when we now have like 30 percent, it will jumpstart the economy in terms of growth of businesses, availability of infrastructure and services will be everywhere. Our educational system, health sector and other industries will be transformed, if broadband comes into service”.
On the speculations that the coming Infrastructure Companies (Infracos) will not work, he revealed that even as people are speculating that it will not succeed, some very smart companies are finalising their marketing plans and putting together their documents with the aim to bid for the auction on August 4.
“For us as a Commission, we have an experience, a lot of our business processes are professionally handled, transparently and efficiently done. So, we expect that as NCC, we should be able to deliver. Well , that was what they say in 2001 when GSM came into the country . Lots of people didn’t think that it will succeed but felt that it was a fluke and that it wouldn’t work. Even the operators that got the licenses underestimated the size of our market, a number of them were projecting an uptake of about 500,000 subscribers by the end of 2001. But by the end of 2001, a number of them have hit the one million subscribers mark. There is always this thing about under estimating the Nigerian market and the capacity of the Nigerian subscribers to latch on the services that are being provided”.
However, the Director, lamented that the data market is largely under marketed unlike the phenomenal growth that was witnessed in the voice segment where 400,000 lines in 2001 has now reached 130m active subscribers line today.
He also denied the witch hunting allegation by the dominant operator, saying, “You must understand that MTN is a dominant operator and we have guidelines because anything the dominant operator does affect the other operators and the market. As a responsive and responsible regulator, we have to ensure that the market remains viable , able to deliver very good services to the consumers and that investors are assured that their investments are protected. So as regulators all over the world, anywhere there is a dominant operator, the guideline is different from the other ones. And that is what we have done and is still doing, we have not done anything out of tune with the policy guiding the Commission”, he said.
Source:sunnewsonline.com
Ojobo ,who spoke exclusively to Daily Sun in Enugu yesterday (Thursday)at the three day annual national conference of the Nigerian Computer Society (NCS), IT umbrella body for Computer professionals,holding at the Nike Lake Resort Center noted that lots of people want to do things online today including study centres, hotels, publishing houses, online shops, stressing that all of these require huge data requirement.
He further disclosed that when the country will experience broadband revolution, through the infracos providing the infrastructure, the capacity will boost businesses because “If we are currently at 10 percent increase in broadband ‘s penetration, you will have at least 3.8 percent increase in the Gross Domestic Product, GDP. Imagine when we now have like 30 percent, it will jumpstart the economy in terms of growth of businesses, availability of infrastructure and services will be everywhere. Our educational system, health sector and other industries will be transformed, if broadband comes into service”.
On the speculations that the coming Infrastructure Companies (Infracos) will not work, he revealed that even as people are speculating that it will not succeed, some very smart companies are finalising their marketing plans and putting together their documents with the aim to bid for the auction on August 4.
“For us as a Commission, we have an experience, a lot of our business processes are professionally handled, transparently and efficiently done. So, we expect that as NCC, we should be able to deliver. Well , that was what they say in 2001 when GSM came into the country . Lots of people didn’t think that it will succeed but felt that it was a fluke and that it wouldn’t work. Even the operators that got the licenses underestimated the size of our market, a number of them were projecting an uptake of about 500,000 subscribers by the end of 2001. But by the end of 2001, a number of them have hit the one million subscribers mark. There is always this thing about under estimating the Nigerian market and the capacity of the Nigerian subscribers to latch on the services that are being provided”.
However, the Director, lamented that the data market is largely under marketed unlike the phenomenal growth that was witnessed in the voice segment where 400,000 lines in 2001 has now reached 130m active subscribers line today.
He also denied the witch hunting allegation by the dominant operator, saying, “You must understand that MTN is a dominant operator and we have guidelines because anything the dominant operator does affect the other operators and the market. As a responsive and responsible regulator, we have to ensure that the market remains viable , able to deliver very good services to the consumers and that investors are assured that their investments are protected. So as regulators all over the world, anywhere there is a dominant operator, the guideline is different from the other ones. And that is what we have done and is still doing, we have not done anything out of tune with the policy guiding the Commission”, he said.
Source:sunnewsonline.com
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