MTN Nigeria says close to half of its subscribers have submitted their National Identity Numbers (NIN) for verification and integration with their data.
The telecoms company in its full year financial report said over 37.2 million subscribers have submitted the NIN, representing 48.7 per cent of its subscribers’ base.
The company said it was collaborating with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to ensure subscribers’ records were updated.
“To date, over 37.2 million subscribers have submitted their NINs, representing 48.7% of our subscriber base. We are working with NIMC to complete bulk verification of the NINs collected. This requires improved integration with the NIMC database, the development of which has reached an advanced stage,” MTN said.
It added that the new SIM activation suspension had minimal impact on service revenue in the fourth quarter of 2020.
The company said subscribers’ growth would be impacted significant in the first quarter of 2021 if the suspension remains.
The Outgoing Chief Executive Officer, MTN Nigeria, Ferdi Moolman, said, “The introduction of additional customer registration requirements and suspension of the sale and activation of new SIMs towards the end of the year affected subscriber growth.”
“We anticipate that subscriber growth will be significantly impacted in Q1 2021 should it remain in place. In the near-term, we expect the service revenue impact of the suspension to be moderate as usage is primarily driven by active SIMs in our base,” it added.
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, had in December directed the industry regulator, Nigerian Communications Commission, to instruct telcos to immediately suspend the sale and activation of new SIM cards to allow another audit of the Subscriber Registration Database.
As part of the audit process, the telcos, the minister and the NCC reached an agreement that all SIM cards that were not registered with valid National Identification Numbers on the network of telecommunications companies should be blocked after two weeks.
However, the exercise has been extended to April 6, 2021.
According to MTN, 15,000 devices have been procured for the NIN registrations and there are 36 active centres across the country.
“To support the Federal Government’s effort to ensure that every Nigerian has a valid NIN, we have been granted a NIN enrolment licence and have commenced enrolment in 36 centres across the country,” the telecoms company said.
“We are also working with NIMC and the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy to expand our enrolment centres and provide an access point for as many Nigerian as possible. To this end, we have acquired over 15,000 enrolment devices, which are being configured for this purpose, and placed orders for additional ones.”
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