On 21 May 2012, at the age of 29, he was named as the Minister of Communications and Mass Media in Dmitry Medvedev's Cabinet, thus becoming its youngest member.

[2] In October 2012, Nikiforov criticized Russia's leading telecom operation, Rostelecom for failing to address "digital inequality" in the country.

Nikiforov singled out Rostelecom's investment strategy, which has primarily focused on expanding its market share by acquiring other companies, as inadequate.

Nikiforov said the purpose of the Ministry of Communications is to ensure that all mail should be delivered within the boundaries of one large city of community within one day[3] and that he sees several instruments of financing the postal service’s upgrade program, such as the issue of infrastructure bonds, a rise in the prices of some services, the introduction of differentiated fees for the delivery of pensions (depending on the region) and the introduction of tax breaks.

He was quoted by AFP as saying "American special services … will significantly increase the volume of information they intercept (which) of course causes serious concern to many governmental clients.