Smile Communications Nigeria Limited, the 4G LTE broadband provider of choice, has described the Nigeria’s digital economy as huge, and will impact virtually all segments of the economy.

‘Digital Economy’ was coined by Don Tapscott in 1995 to imply an economy chiefly triggered by digital computing technologies.

Thus, in the face of dwindling oil revenue with increasingly pressure on the economy evident in budgets deficit, infrastructural deficit, high unemployment rate, harsh business environment, corruption, amongst others, Mr. Michiel Buitelaar, managing director, Smile Communications Nigeria Limited, said that leveraging digital economy should be regarded as a sine qua non in sustaining the economy by the incoming administration led by Muhammed Buhari. 

Buitelaar who was speaking during a panel discussion at the sixth (6th) Annual Pan-African 1:1 Investor Conference organized by Renaissance Capital in Lagos, identified infrastructural advancement as overriding factor for the immediate expansion of sectors such as agriculture, transportation, banking & finance, health-care/medicine, and education.

He said that Smile Communications aligns itself with the key statistics expected for the Nigerian Digital Economy by 2018 as released by the Federal Ministry of Communication Technology, especially for the emergence of an industry that is less fragmented.

According to the country’s target, the industry expects to attain 30 per cent broadband penetration by 2018 from the present less than 10 per cent.

The Smile MD said, “There are various advantages the digital economic providers have over the traditional. However, to make this happen faster, there are catalysts required for it to even drive other sectors outside the ICT. Digital economy will be the driver of the agricultural, transport, health-care/medicine, education, banking & finance, among others. In our company, for instance, we are talking to companies in those sectors and one recently said that ‘the software is eating the world’.

“We do believe the new digital ICT will influence other sectors. For example, in agriculture; like I have seen in other countries, the efficiency and productivity is very likely to explode once all the digital economy has entered into their arena. It is also our expectation that the impact will become more pronounced within the next ten years. For emphasis sake, sectors like agricultural, transport, health-care/medicine, education, commerce, in fact, the whole move of digitization will have impact on the emerging economy and Nigeria’s economy is well positioned to make their journey better than many others,” the Smile Communications boss said.

Specifically on expected broadband impact on digital economy, Buitelaar, extolled the outgoing administration of President Goodluck Jonathan for approving the National Broadband Plan (NBP), expressing confidence in the Buhari government’s compelling posture for firm implementation of the plans.

“I think the Federal Government is doing a quite well, especially, by releasing a National Broadband Plan (NBP), but I will argue that the next Government continues with the plan in an even ‘forceful’ manner. Similarly, spectrum allocations should be looked at too; it is more of technical, but very important in the nation’s quest for more ubiquitous broadband. There are sub-sectors that the broadband availability will immediately impact their operations such as the delivery viz a viz ecommerce, e-payment, education and other clusters of business. These are crucial reasons the digital economy should be allowed to blossom,” he said.

“Having been here for six months, Nigeria is a wonderful country. At the same time, the incoming government should do something as regards the image of the country and perception in the rest of the world. That alone is capable of convincing foreign investors about the country’s business climate. Secondly, on infrastructure, I do believe that the whole country will benefit in smart investments in infrastructure. There are issues in transport, power and payment systems; if these issues can be addressed, with a couple of other commitments, I believe in the next few years the country will be reaping large chunk of benefits from them,” he said.     

Buitelaar added that the Company will not rest on its oars until Nigerians have access to qualitative and affordable broadband services.

He said, “From the Smile Communications’ perspective, we have penchant interest in the provision of high quality service. Later this year we will rollout service in a couple of other cities. We are serious about providing superfast broadband, high availability, high-quality and reliable offering, because Nigerians deserve qualitative service. If a small scale business is using your service, they ought to get maximum benefit; that is the way they can grow and employ more people. In that way you have impacted lives and the country’s GDP will feel the boost as well”.

Earlier, the Keynote speaker, Professor Pat Utomi, while addressing investors and captains of industries at the Conference, shared similar views with Mr. Buitelaar.

He said that thrust of the in-coming administration should be centered on making corruption costly and unattractive through public service entrepreneurship and goal oriented; reinvent sectors like mining and building clusters of strong institutions, leveraging ICT, among others.

Also, Global Chief Economist at Renaissance Capital, Mr. Charles Robertson, noted: “We see great long-term potential across Africa, particularly, in Nigeria, Kenya and Egypt.”

“We believe Nigeria will be a trillion dollar economy by 2025 and it will keep doubling in size every 10 years. GDP per capita is likely to reach around $15,000 by 2050. Following the April elections, the new government represents the best opportunity in recent years to push forward reform for Africa’s largest economy,” he said.

The sixth (6th) Annual Pan-African 1:1 Investor Conference organized by Renaissance Capital in Lagos attracted over 150 investors representing both global and frontier funds and 50 companies from across the African continent.

Smile Communications Nigeria Limited was founded in 2007 with the transformative objective of using the best and most innovative technologies to provide its customers with high quality, easy to use and affordable communication services.

Its vision and mission is to be the broadband provider of choice in Nigeria and enable its customers to fully benefit from the Internet world. Smile launched West Africa’s first true 4G LTE network in Ibadan in 2013 thereby revolutionizing the way people access the Internet.