Telecommunication giant, MTN Nigeria have said that 8.6 million lines were completely blocked from the network by the directory of the Nigerian Communications Commission on Sims not linked to the National Identification Number of the users
This was disclosed by MTN Nigeria in its 1st quarter of 2024 Financial Report, stating that it affected its business operations during the period, according to nairametrics.
However, MTN disclosed that NCC has extended the 15 April deadline to 31 July 2024 to give more time for subscribers with fewer than five lines linked to an unverified NIN to complete the necessary verification process.
According to MTN, those subscribers who did not provide their NIN and those with more than 5 lines associated with an unsubstantiated NIN are the ones whose lines have been fully ruled out.
Commenting on this development, MTN Nigeria’s 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 full barring of subscriber lines not linked to their National Identity Number. the NIN-SIM directive.
“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 said this demonstrated the effectiveness of the company’s customer value management (CVM) initiatives, which helped it retain affected customers and reduce churn, as well as drive gross connections.
Toriola said the impact of its customer value management (CVM) initiatives, which helped to retain and reduce affected customers as well as generate gross connections, showed it to be effective.
Data from NCC show that active mobile subscriptions in Nigeria across the networks of MTN, Airtel, Globacom, and (mobile, which stood at 224.4 million in December 2023 had declined to 219 million as of March 2024 as all the telecom operators implemented the policy on the mandatory NIN-SIM linkage
According to NCC, as all telecoms operators implemented the mandatory SIM linkage policy in March 2024, there was a decrease in Nigeria’s active mobile subscriber base from 224.4 million in December 2023 down to 219 million by March 2024 on MTN, Airtel, Globacom, and 9mobile network.
