The just concluded verification of the National Identification Numbers (NINs) linked with Subscriber Identity Modules (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.
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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.
The company, however, also lost 3.7 million subscriptions to the exercise as its active subscriptions database stood at 81.7 million in March.
Airtel Nigeria, which occupies the second position, ended September with 53.7 million active subscriptions.
The telco also lost about 9.6 million subscriptions over the last six months bringing its database down from the 63.3 million it recorded in March.
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.
Airtel Africa, the parent company of Airtel Nigeria, had in its financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2024, disclosed that it could lose up to $4 million in monthly revenue due to the verification of customers’ NIN in Nigeria.
As of that time, Airtel reported that it had not been able to verify the NIN of about 4.9 million customers.
Earlier, MTN Nigeria also declared that it had disconnected 4.2 million lines that were not linked with NIN as of 28 February 2024. It, however, noted that that had minimal impact on its revenue as the affected customers were ‘low-value subscribers.’
Sanitized database
Speaking with Nairametrics 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,” nirametrics quoted Maida as saying 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.
However, several deadlines were fixed until August this year when the NCC fixed a final deadline of September 14 for not just linking but also verification of all NINs linked with SIMs.
Before that, many telecom subscribers/consumers were unable to make or receive phone calls between July 28 and 29, as the telecom operators barred millions of lines ahead of the July 31 earlier fixed by the regulator.
This, however, led to chaos as many subscribers that besieged the telco stores went violent. The action also coincided with a planned nationwide protest scheduled for August 1 to 10.
This prompted the NCC to make a U-turn, by ordering all telecommunication companies in the country to reactivate all lines they had barred.
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.