The Nigerian Information Technology (IT) market has recorded its poorest performance so far on capital investment in 2021 over the last five years, while 2019 outperformed the previous years.
According to a recent data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the IT service market ended the year with a total amount of $6.26 million, representing a big decline compared to 5 years ago which stood at $23.52 million.
However, 2019 attracted the highest amount of investment over the years by finishing the year with a total of $74.74 million.
The data indicates that the sector has seen a consistent decrease in the amount of capital importation since 2020, ranging $21.7 and 6.26 respectively.
While looking at the Year on Year analysis from 2017, the data shows that the sector attracted $23.51 million in 2017, $53.90 in 2018, $74.74 in 2019, $21.7 in 2020, and $6.26 in 2021, as at the time it was lastly updated by NBS.
The year on year analysis of these reports indicates that the sector has been fluctuating for 5 years now, reducing and seeing sluggish growth.
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Similarly, the report disclosed that 2017 to 2019 saw a consistent growth in capital importation ($23.51, $58.90, $74.74) million respectively, which represents $152.15 million worth of capital imported within an interval of 3 years.
The statistics, however, shows that the previous years have attracted investment in the IT service market than the recent years, as 2020 and 2021, only attracted combined investment which amounted to $21.96 million.
These two years attracted investment in the sectors still represents a very low amount compared to a single year within the 5 interval.
Meanwhile 2018 and 2019 stood outstanding, generating a total of $128.64 million for the sector in two years while 2017, 2020 and 2021 was a reverse, attracting $51.47 million for the market in 3 years.
Generally, the report recently released in March 2022, shows that 2019 had a better outing in the tech space as it also records high in other sectors including the telecom market which ended with a total of $944.1 against other years in the last 10 years of capital importation.
