The total active mobile subscriptions in the country dipped by 5.4 million or 2.4 per cent, settling at 219 million in the first quarter of 2024, data obtained from the Nigerian Communications Commission has shown.
In December 2023, the total active mobile subscriptions stood at 224.4 million, up from 219 million recorded in March 2024.
The decline was linked to the enforcement of the mandatory National Identity Number-Subscriber Identity Module linkage policy by the NCC.
Meanwhile, over 40 million lines, including active and multiple lines belonging to a single mobile subscriber, may have been barred between February and April.
The PUNCH gathered that a large chunk of the 40 million blocked lines were inactive.
Meanwhile, the total number of Nigerians who have enrolled for NIN as of April 2024 was 105 million, according to the National Identity Management Commission.
The NCC issued a notice in December 2023 instructing telecom operators to bar SIMs not linked to their owners’ NINs by February 28, 2024.
The disconnection process unfolded in three phases, with the first phase taking place in February, followed by the second phase on March 29, 2024.
The final phase, initially scheduled for April 15, has been postponed to July 31, following careful consideration of challenges and requests for extensions.
In April 2022, Nigeria witnessed a significant development in its telecom sector as telecom operators took the first step towards enforcing the SIM-NIN rule.
During this period, over 72.77 million active telecom lines were barred by the telcos, marking a pivotal moment in regulatory compliance.
During that time period, the country had a total of 197.77 million active telecom lines.
MTN Nigeria disclosed in its first-quarter 2024 financial report that it had barred 8.6 million lines, while Airtel, Glo, and 9mobile are expected to follow suit, although specific numbers have not been released.
According to MTN, the country’s biggest telco by market share, the lines that have been fully barred are those of subscribers who did not submit their NIN and those with more than five lines linked to an unverified NIN.
The MTN CEO, Karl Toriola, said, “During the quarter, we also continued to manage the effects on our business of the industry-wide directive of the Nigerian Communications Commission for a full barring of subscriber lines not linked to their National Identity Number.
“This impacted the development of our user base across all of our key business units (voice, data, and fintech) in Q1 2024. Although we had to fully bar 8.6 million subscribers in line with the directive, we minimised the net effect of the barred subscribers, and our total number of subscribers only decreased by 2 million in Q1, closing with a total of 77.7 million subscribers.”
Toriola noted that this demonstrated the effectiveness of the company’s customer value management initiatives, which helped it retain affected customers, reduce churn, and drive gross connections.
SOURCE: PUNCHNG
