In January 2024, MTN, a leading South African multinational corporation in mobile telecommunications, faced a notable setback, losing 7.3 million active subscriptions. This decline was attributed to the company’s compliance with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC)’s mandate to deactivate SIM cards not linked with National Identification Numbers (NINs).
Following the NCC’s directive issued in December 2023, all telecommunication operators, including MTN, were required to implement network barring on phone lines lacking NINs by February 28, 2024. Subscribers who failed to submit their NINs faced the risk of complete deactivation, with a deadline set for March 29, 2024, for unverified NINs with five or more connected lines, and April 15, 2024, for those with fewer than five connections.
MTN’s active subscriptions plummeted from 87 million in December 2023 to 79.7 million in January 2024, marking a loss of around 7.3 million subscriptions. The company disclosed that it deactivated 4.2 million connections as part of the NIN-SIM linking directive, having verified a total of 19 million lines since the regulation’s enforcement in December 2023.
Similarly, 9mobile witnessed a decline in subscriptions, losing 135,788 subscribers in January, totaling 13.7 million subscribers. In contrast, Airtel and Globacom experienced slight growth in their subscriber bases during the same period.
Despite Airtel welcoming 767,887 new customers and Globacom adding 321,869 subscribers in January, Nigeria’s overall active mobile service subscriptions decreased by over six million compared to December 2023, totaling 218 million. Consequently, the country’s teledensity dropped from 103.66% in December to 100.75% in January 2024.