The year 2022 is now locked up in the history books, but its impacts on the technology world will not be easily forgotten.Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter in October after an initial pullback from the deal dominated the tech news globally. He was compelled by the court to honour the deal, and he eventually bought the microblogging and social networking platform for $44bn. Also, in the short time that he has been Twitter’s chief executive officer, he has served some memorable content to the watching world.Two years prior to 2022, the global technology ecosystem was the toast of the global economy. While other industries shrank and or faced a recession, this industry boomed, and tech firms were valued at all-time highs. The COVID-19-induced lockdown meant that people had to rely heavily on digital services and tech firms.By the turn of 2022, the tech ecosystem was on the ascendency, and many considered the industry to be immune to any economic downturn. However, the Russian-Ukraine war and high government spending during the pandemic leading to record-high inflation rates, with central banks across the world raising interest rates in response, which choked off access to easy capital, have caused the tech sector to take a hit.Since peaking during the COVID-19 pandemic, the global tech industry has lost $7.4tn of its total value. In response, 1013 tech firms laid off 153,160 in 2022, 59.57 per cent more than the 95,991 that had been laid off since the onset of COVID-19, prior to 2022.Tech firms such as Meta, Twitter, and Amazon headlined these layoffs. Nigerian firms were not isolated from the global reality of the tech sector. the Founder of Lendsqr and a trustee of Open Banking Nigeria, Adedeji Olowe, said, “These are factors that are influencing the movement of money away. This cycle, that is, funding scarcity is not going to last forever.“It is likely to get worse towards the end of the year, although by next year it will start shaping up again. Between now and when things start getting better, start-ups without solid bases are at risk. A lot of this is already happening in the US. Start-ups are struggling and laying off staff, and when this is happening, it mirrors what might happen here too.”On the investment front, start-ups in Nigeria have not fared well even though they have raised almost $1.2bn and must raise at least $534m to better 2021 figures, ‘Africa: The Big Deal’ reports said.The report which monitors deals over $100,000, disclosed that despite having a great first half of the year, which spilt into the second half, things were quiet on the investment front in November. It stated that start-ups must raise $534m in December to beat the amount raised in 2021.The start-up subsector of the ecosystem was not the one affected by global realities as the telecommunication subsector had to grapple with high energy costs, rising inflation, and multiple taxations.In 2022, telecommunication companies tried at least twice to raise the cost of their services in response to the prevailing operating environment. In May 2022, a leaked letter from the Association of Licensed Telecommunication Operators of Nigeria to the Nigerian Communications Commission revealed that telcos were proposing a 40 per cent increase in the cost of calls, SMS, and data to the regulator because of the rising cost of operating a business in the country.Their proposal would have increased the price floor of calls from N6.4 to N8.95 and the price cap of SMS would have increased from N4 to N5.61. According to the telcos, they have been financially impacted by the country’s economic recession in 2020 and the effect of the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war.While nothing was done in this regard, telcos were allowed to increase the price of some of their Internet bundles later in the year by the NCC. MTN Nigeria Communications Plc and Airtel Nigeria subsequently increased prices for their internet data services by about 10 per cent.They had to reverse their prices after the NCC turned down final approval for the price review. Also, one of the major conversations that dominated the telecom sector was multiple taxations.
