MTN, Airtel, others lose 64.3 million lines to NIN-SIM verification

MTN, Airtel, others lose 64.3 million lines to NIN-SIM verification

The recently concluded verification of the National Identification Numbers (NINs) linked with mobile 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.

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.

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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.

MTN still maintains market lead

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.

MTN, Airtel, others lose 64.3 million lines to NIN-SIM verification