Business
Telcos lose 64.3 million subscriptions to NIN-SIM verification as Glo, 9mobile shed massive weight
The recently concluded verification of the National Identification Numbers (NINs) linked with mobile SIMs has led to a significant drop in the subscriptions database of all mobile network operators in the country as MTN, Airtel, Globacom, and 9mobile yanked off 64.3 million lines.
According to the latest data released on Monday by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the huge loss was significantly driven by two of the operators, Globacom and 9mobile, which shed massive weight due to unverified NINs during the exercise that closed on September 14.
Globacom, which had 62.1 million active subscriptions as of March was left with 19.1 million subscriptions at the end of September, losing a whopping 43 million subscriptions.
Similarly, 9mobile, which had lost numerous customers in the past years was left with only 3.6 million active subscriptions at the end of September.
As of March, 9mobile’s subscription database stood at 11.6 million, indicating that the telecom operator had lost about eight million subscriptions to the NIN verification exercise
This action left the four GSM operators with a total of 154.6 million active subscriptions at the end of September from 219 million recorded in March this year.
Despite the sanitization and pruning exercise on the telecom operators’ databases, MTN Nigeria still maintained its top spot in the market with 78 million active subscriptions as of September.
Although the two quoted companies, MTN and Airtel, are not impacted as much as Globacom and 9mobile, this is bound to impact their Q3 2024 revenue, which will soon be released.
Before the final exercise, the operators had reported possible impacts of the exercise on their bottom lines.
Speaking with ThePressNG on the development, a telecom expert, Mr. Adewale Adeoye, said the last verification exercise appeared to be the most thorough and the huge decline in operators database means that the system has been thoroughly sanitized.
“This is a good development for Nigeria and the telecom industry. It means that every Nigerian on the telecom network is now properly identified, which will promote decent use of telecommunication services.
“I hope that the Nigerian security forces will make use of this to address the insecurity in the country or else the whole exercise will be a waste of time and resources,” he said.
Earlier this month, the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Dr. Aminu Maida declared all mobile lines in use in Nigeria have been linked with NIN following the conclusion of the implementation of the federal government’s 2020 policy of linking every phone number to a NIN in September.
“Today, there is no phone number that we cannot associate with a verified NIN. Not just a number, but a number that has been verified.
“If this phone number is involved in fraud or any crime, I can now authoritatively say, based on the NIN linked to it, this is the person who is using that phone number,” Maida said while speaking at the 2024 annual corporate governance conference held in Lagos.
The compulsory linkage of NIN with SIM began in December 2020 when the government directed telecommunication companies to bar unregistered SIM cards and SIMs that were not linked to NIN.
The telecom regulator, however, noted that the suspension of the blockage was for a limited period to allow them to properly link their NIN to their SIM.
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