The suspension of Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card retrieval by the Nigerian government is affecting the performance of telecoms operators as the number of telecom subscribers in the country dropped by 11.84 million in four months.
Analyses of the latest industry statistics obtained from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on Sunday showed that mobile network operators started losing subscribers since last year November.
This was due to the suspension of new SIM registration, activation and retrieval of lost SIM card to allow subscribers to update their records with their National Identity Number (NIN).
The NCC report indicated that the telcos had lost 46,648 subscribers in November 2020, 3.38 million subscribers in December 2020 and then a loss of 4.29 million subscribers in January 2021.
The NCC’s recent report showed that telecommunications operators in the country recorded another loss of 4.13 million active subscribers in February 2021.
This brings the total number of mobile phone users to 195.73 million as of the end of February this year.
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MTN , Airtel, Globacom and 9mobile also recorded zero porting activities, following the NCC’s directive in December for the telcos to halt porting activities as well.
A further breakdown of subscriber statistics showed that Airtel once again lost the highest number of subscribers in February.
The telco dropped by 1.99 million subscribers from 53.42 million subscribers in January to 51.43 million customers.
MTN followed with a loss of 1.68 million subscribers. It had 79.03 million subscribers in January, but the figure fell to 77.34 million in February.
Globacom lost 415,071 subscribers in the month under review, recording a total of 54.17 million subscribers as against 54.59 million users in January.
While 9mobile, which had 12.80 million users in January, lost 35,698 subscribers in February with a total of 12.77 million users.
Globacom, which replaced Airtel as the second largest operator in January, retained the position with 27.68 per cent market share, while Airtel followed with 26.28 per cent market share.
MTN remained Nigeria’s largest mobile network operator with 39.52 per cent market share. 9mobile remained the fourth operator with 6.41 per cent market share.
The industry report stated that Nigeria’s tele-density dropped by 2.17 per cent as the number of subscriptions dropped from 200.21 million in January to 196.07 million in February.
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