MTN says 60 million of its customers have linked their NIN

Telecommunications company, MTN Nigeria has said that approximately 60 million of its customers have linked their National Identification Number (NIN) with their SIM as of April 25, 2022. According to the company, this represents 85 per cent of its subscriber base.

As of April 4, 2022, when the government directed the telcos to bar outgoing calls on lines that were not yet linked, MTN says 19 million of its subscribers were affected. However, as of April 25, 8.7 million of those restricted submitted their NINs for verification, out of which approximately 1.2 million have been reactivated,

MTN disclosed in its Q1 financial results that its subscriber base as of March 30, 2022, stood at 70.2 million. This means that over 10 million of its subscribers were yet to link their NIN as of April.

What MTN is saying

Highlighting the impacts of the government’s directive on its revenue, MTN in its Q1 2022 financial results, said: “Following the NCC’s directive on 4 April 2022 that all operators should restrict outgoing calls for subscribers whose SIMs are not associated with NINs, we implemented the directive on approximately 19 million of our affected subscribers at that date.

• “However, subscribers whose outgoing calls were restricted for non-submission of their NINs require their NINs to be verified before being reactivated. As at 25 April 2022, about 8.7 million of those restricted submitted their NINs for verification, of which approximately 1.2 million have been reactivated, many of whom are high-value customers.”
• “Outgoing voice revenue from the subscribers who are yet to be reactivated therefore contributed approximately 7.8% of total service revenue based on FY 2021. In terms of how general traffic trends have evolved since the implementation of the directive, we have seen a drop off in traffic following our compliance with the directive,” the company added.

It noted, however, that it has started seeing a gradual recovery as the affected subscribers are reconnected to resume voice calls.

• “As MTN Nigeria, we continue to engage our affected subscribers while providing hardware support for the National Identity Management Commission to accelerate the verification of NINs submitted. We have taken significant steps to help drive NIN enrolment for subscribers who do not yet have a NIN, deploying over 4,200 points of enrolment across the country. We have also provided multiple channels to enable our customers to submit their NIN for verification and linkage,” the company sated.