Nigeria has retaken its position as Africa’s biggest economy after South Africa enters its second recession in two years. Nigeria exited recession by the second quarter of 2017, after recording a positive growth rate of 0.5% year on year due to improved revenue in the oil sector.

Since then, Nigeria has failed to retake its position as the biggest economy in Africa until now. South Africa’s economy was on the verge of collapsing into recession in the second quarter of 2019, but a rebound led by recovery in the mining industry and growth in the financial sector saved the day.

Since the Q2 of 2019, South Africa’s economy has been wobbling on the corridors of recession, and with its power problems that has affected almost every sector of its economy, low business confidence and weak industrial activities, the economy slipped into the grip of recession. Data from Statistics South Africa showed that the country’s GDP fell by 1.4% in the fourth quarter of 2019.

Nigeria and South Africa command half of sub-Saharan Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and have been battling to keep their places owing to revenue shortfalls.

Nigeria’s economy beat expectation to grow at 2.5% at the end of Q4 2019, surpassing International Monetary Fund (IMF) projection of 2.1%. The African giant generated more revenue due to increased output in oil, the country’s major commodity export. And it shot its GDP up to $476 billion (if you are using $306 official exchange rate) or $402 billion (if you are using $362 weaker market exchange rate), according to Bloomberg report. However, compared with South Africa’s $352 billion, Nigeria has the higher GDP, and that makes her the biggest economy in Africa.

Bloomberg report said: “Nigeria’s economic growth beat forecasts in the fourth quarter, helping its economy to expand the most in four years in 2019 as oil output increased and the central bank took steps to boost credit growth. The GDP in the West African country stood at $476 billion or $402 billion, depending on the rate used.

“South Africa’s economy went the opposite direction. It slumped into a second recession in consecutive years, contracting more than projected in the fourth quarter as power cuts weighed on output and business confidence.

“For the full year, expansion was 0.2 percent, the least since the global financial crisis, and even less than the central bank and government estimated. Based on an average rand-dollar exchange rate of 14.43 for the year, the GDP was $352 billion.”

The report added that the slow growth of South Africa’s economy adds pressure on the central bank to lower the benchmark interest rate at its Monetary Policy Committee meeting March 19. The pressure is heightened by U.S. Federal Reserve’s emergency rate cut as a measure of preparation for a possible spread of coronavirus.

South Africa’s chances to bounce back are slim as projections show that Nigeria’s economy will continue to grow faster, though IMF has cut its forecast for Nigeria’s 2020 growth to 2% from 2.5% last month, considering dwindling oil prices, recently instigated by coronavirus.

South Africa’s GDP is projected to grow by 0.8% only, setting a huge gap that will keep Nigeria ahead unless a miracle happens.

However, Nigeria’s GDP remains low when compared with the country’s population and social economic needs. The 2% growth forecast falls short of the growing population because the oil-based revenue generation is slow.

Experts recommend a yearly GDP growth of 6% and above for Nigeria to curtail its economic lapses.

The World Bank said growth has constrained by a weak macroeconomic framework with high persistent inflation, multiple exchange rate windows and forex restrictions, distortionary activities by the central bank, and a lack of revenue-driven fiscal consolidation results.

Rising public debt, and increasingly complex policy interventions by the central bank constrain private sector credit growth. External balances are fragile to hot money movements, and fiscal buffers are exhausted, making Nigeria’s economy vulnerable to external risks. The border closure has also constituted basis for inflation as it limits intra-African trade that would boost local production of goods and services.

The fourth quarter 2019 report showed improvement in the non-oil sector, but it’s not enough to bridge the wide gap of dependence on oil. The World Bank urged Nigeria to implement bold reforms that could have a significant impact on the economy’s trajectory.

Such reforms are: removal of subsidies, elimination of forex and trade restrictions, greater transparency and predictability of monetary policy and increased domestic revenue mobilization.

Image: comparison of Nigeria and South Africa’s 2019 budgets

The social media app TikTok continues to exert influence over an increasing number of people. Sensor Tower reported that the social video app has surpassed 1.5 billion downloads in the app stores, giving it a huge audience amidst fierce competition.

In 2018, TikTok was the fourth most downloaded non-gaming app in the world,with a record 655.8 million unique installs. In 2019, it added more than 614 million downloads, 6 percent more than it had at the same point last year.it’s growth speed has been spontaneous and intimidating, mocking other social media apps like Facebook that has constantly tried to push the Chinese investment aside.

The short video app has been a thorn in the flesh of Facebook from when the idea became widely appealing to young people. Instagram has failed to stay ahead in the short video business, giving Mark Zuckerberg a cause for concern that resulted in the attempt to clone  TikTok. While Facebook is leading the download battle through other members of its family, TikTok has been doing the solo push to the top.

According to Analytics site Sensor Tower, TikTok crossed the 1 billion downloads back in February 2019. It took a space of less than nine months for the app to add 500 million to make the 1 billion mark, and about six months to add further 600 million downloads.

Its popularity has been heightened by three major countries – the US, India and China. India has been recently, the center of its proliferation, and has accounted for more than 31% of its downloads. China on the other hand, has become its second biggest market with over 11.5% downloads, while the US is responsible for over 8.2%.

Within three years, the video app has moved up to top ten in the rank of social media platforms, taking the seventh place ahead of YouTube and Twitter that have been around for much longer.

TikToks’s biggest threat has been the US’ Government’s interest in its activities on the excuse of national security concerns. TikTok was acquired by ByteDance, a Beijing-based technology in 2016, but had been on the radar of surveillance by the US authorities ever since then. However, that has not stopped it from pulling a surprise growth that has kept Facebook paranoid.

But it is apparent that the US government’s inquisition is stymieing the app’s growth in the United States, where a large number of Generation Z demographic have found a deep connection with the video features, and are dropping other video apps for it. Moreover, the appeal is catching interest from other countries and TikTok is poised to take advantage of that and extend its services to these countries. According to Global Web Index, 41 percent of TikTok users are aged between 16 and 24.

TikTok is available in more than 155 countries, and in 75 languages including 15 local Indian tongues. A push it is making to win more people around the world to make up for the seeming US apathy that has kept its growth in North America on check, though the number of US adult users of the app has been consistently on the rise since 2018. The number of US adults on TikTok doubled from 7.2 million in September 2018, to 14.3 million in just six months. Exponentially, the number grew 5.5 times, offering hope of further increase in the future.

The recent growth in its adult usage in the US has been attributed to Jimmy Fallon’s show that encourages audience to participate in different challenges created by the TikTok App. The interesting challenge has spurred a lot of interest and caused many people to download the App.

While video sharing has become a thriving social media business that has kept companies like YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat online for years now, TikTok seems to have found a new perspective that gives users a different taste from what other platforms have to offer.

TikTok is mainly designed for content creation, giving every user an opportunity not only to share contents but become creators of contents. The ease of creating one’s own content has become the force behind the drive.

However, TikTok’s success is drawing a lot of competition from video App startups such as Facebook’s Lasso and Chinese Douyin that is currently leading in China. Lasso is currently available in the US, Mexico and Colombia, but Facebook is reportedly planning to launch it in India to counter TikTok’s influence and expand Lasso’s reach.