The Azerbaijani information and communication technology sector (ICT) is one of the most dynamically developing sectors of the national economy due its profitability and total profitability of this business. Although the main catalyst for the growth of Azerbaijan's economy is the oil and gas sector, the ICT sector also increases its capacity every year.
Information and communication services worth 514.3 million manat were rendered for Azerbaijan's population and organizations in January-April 2015 or 10.6 percent more than in the same period of 2014, the Azerbaijani State Statistics Committee's report says.
Around 72.2 percent of the total volume of information and communication services accounted for the services rendered to the population.
Some 54.3 percent of a total volume of obtained income accounted for mobile services.
A total volume of revenues obtained from mobile services in Azerbaijan hit 279.3 million manat in January-April, which is 0.4 percent more than in the same period of 2014.
е-signature
The total number of electronic digital signatures (e-signatures) issued by the Azerbaijani National Certification Services Center in April 2015 increased by 3.1 percent compared to March 2015 and hit 31,682 as of May 1, the Information Computer Center under the Azerbaijani Communication and High Technology Ministry said.
The state bodies were provided with 18,396 e-signatures, 5,817 e-signatures were issued to the legal entities and 7,469 to citizens.
Some 332 services of the total number of approved electronic services (454) are available on the "electronic government" (e-gov.az) portal. The total number of e-services placed on the websites of Azerbaijani state organizations is 461. The number of appeals to the "electronic government" portal exceeded 335,800 in April 2015.
The 'Electronic Government' website is a key tool for supporting work with citizens and businesses, belonging to the state and private sectors. It aims at reducing the number of documents required by the citizens, with the help of an electronic interaction among different bodies.
The access to the portal is conducted with the help of e-signature, the identity data of the private entrepreneurs and citizens, verification data (login and password), as well as mobile authentication system, which can be obtained in an electronic form after registering on the portal.
e-commerce
E-commerce market volume amounted to 3.7 million manat in Azerbaijan as of April 2015.
The total volume of retail e-commerce in Azerbaijan increased by 1.8 times compared to the same period of 2014.
Some 92.8 percent of goods purchased in electronic form by the population of Azerbaijan in January-April 2015 accounted for legal entities and 7.2 percent - physical entities.
Non-food items accounted for 96.4 percent of e-commerce market turnover.
Internet
The number of broadband connections in the network of the Baku Telephone Communications Production Association under the Ministry of Communications and High Technologies of Azerbaijan has increased by 62.5 percent since the beginning of the year.
Currently, the number of broadband connections in telecommunications nodes of the production association exceeds 650,000 taking into account the subscriber base of private providers.
Every month the number of Internet connections increased by 5,000-6,000. The decline is mainly observed in the summer.
The production association has recently completed the technical renovation of the platform of the state Internet provider BakinterNet.
Renovating of BakinterNet's platform allows the state provider to fully pass to the IPv6 new protocol, if necessary in the short term.
The transition from IPv4 to IPv6 helps eliminate the problems with the lack of IP-addresses. The providers of Internet services face these problems today. The new Internet protocol IPv6 has a tremendous volume of IP-addresses. It allows addressing many more units than IPv4.