NIN-SIM Linkage: Active Sim Cards Rebound To 219.7m

Despite the economic hardship, the number of mobile subscriptions in Nigeria has rebounded after the initial decrease. As of February 2024, the number of active mobile subscriptions in Nigeria rose to 219.7 million. This was revealed by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in its latest industry statistics.

The increase came after the operators had lost over six million subscriptions in January due to the implementation of the NINSIM directive of the NCC. From 224.4 million in December 2023, active subscriptions across the four mobile networks had plunged to 218 million in January 2024. Meanwhile, the telcos fared in February with a slight increase in the number of active subscriptions.

While Globacom also recorded a slight increase in subscriptions for the month, struggling fourth mobile operator, 9mobile sank deeper as it recorded a decline in subscriptions. A breakdown of the operators’ individual data shows that MTN, which controls the largest share of the market, gained 1.1 million new subscriptions in February.

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This brought its subscriptions figure to 80.9 million according to the NCC data. Airtel also added 434,175 new subscriptions in the month under review. This pushed up its subscription database from 62.6 million in January to 63 million in February.

Although not as much as MTN and Airtel, Globacom also recorded a gain as it added 176,756 new subscriptions in the month. Globacom had 62.1 million active subscriptions in February compared with 61.9 million in the previous month. However, 9mobile saw the red again in February as it lost 151,517 subscriptions.

The telco, which had lost millions of subscribers over the years, had 13.6 million active subscriptions as of February 2024, down from 13.8 million in January. Meanwhile, the telecoms operators are expected to disconnect more lines this month, which may lead to a decline in the country’s mobile subscriptions.

According to a directive issued by the NCC in December, last year, all telecommunications operators in Nigeria, including MTN, Airtel, and Globacom, among others, are to implement full network barring on all phone lines for which the subscribers have not submitted their national identification numbers (NINs) by February 28, 2024.

The NCC’s directive also asked telecommunications companies to bar lines whose NINs have been submitted but not verified by March 29, 2024 and bar those with less than five lines linked to an unverified NIN by April 15, 2024. The enforcement of the compulsory linking of NIN with mobile lines is part of the government’s effort to boost security in the country.

The move aims to mitigate the potential misuse of multiple SIM cards for illicit activities. The NCC said it discovered that multiple SIM cards like 100 cards were linked to just one NIN. NCC spokesman, Reuben Muoka, said: “People who probably didn’t get a cleared or verified NIN” have been barred because “the earlier ones they submitted was not good.” Muoka had said some SIM cards had verification and identification issues, including disparity in information, names and other data. “

There are still some subscribers whose NINs are yet to be verified by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) and those have to also be corrected,” he said. Many subscribers had complained that they had previously linked their NIN with their SIM cards years ago, but the NCC official said some lines were barred because the information on the NIN did not tally with what the customers registered with their SIM cards.

He said subscribers would have to visit the outlets of their service providers to validate their NINs and resolve other matters. “For now, it requires those physical visits to the stations to get it verified and validated but in the future, we hope that this will be done virtually,” the NCC spokesman said.