MTN Nigeria has taken action in compliance with the Nigerian Communications Commission’s (NCC) directive regarding the linkage of National Identification Numbers (NIN) with mobile SIM cards. With the February 28 deadline expired, MTN has disconnected 4.2 million lines from its network, as revealed in its recently released audited financial results.
These disconnected lines belonged to subscribers who had not provided their NINs for verification. MTN clarified that since December 2023, following the NCC’s directive, it had subjected 19 million lines to verification. Of these, 4.3 million were verified, while 4.2 million were disconnected by February 28, 2024.
Regarding the revenue impact of these disconnections, MTN stated that many of these lines belonged to low-value subscribers, thus minimizing the financial impact. The company emphasized its ongoing efforts to accelerate the NIN verification process and mitigate service disruptions by engaging with the authorities and affected customers through various verification channels.
Regarding performance in 2023, MTN Nigeria’s CEO, Karl Toriola, highlighted the company’s continued commercial momentum in its connectivity business and platforms. Despite the disconnections, MTN added over 4 million subscribers in 2023, bringing the total base to 79.7 million. Additionally, the company increased its data subscribers by over 5 million to reach 44.6 million, driving total data traffic growth of 44.9%.
Toriola attributed this growth to sustained demand for data, supported by MTN’s customer propositions and network quality and coverage investments. He also noted the positive impact of acquiring additional 2600MHz spectrum in September 2023, enabling more efficient network capacity deployment.
As per the NCC directive issued in December 2023, all telecommunications operators in Nigeria were required to fully bar phone lines lacking submitted NINs by February 28, 2024. Those with submitted but unverified NINs were also to be fully barred, with specific timelines for unverified NINs linked to multiple lines. All affected subscribers must undergo verification (biometrics and biodata) before their lines can be unbarred.
