Actively connected mobile lines in Nigeria declined by 0.5% to 219.7 million in June 2023.
This was revealed in the latest industry statistics released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
This came as the 4th consecutive month of loss for the mobile operators, having recorded a 1% decline in subscriptions in May and April, and a 0.4% decline in March.
As of May, active subscriptions across the networks of MTN, Glo, Airtel, and 9mobile stood at 220.9 million.
This showed that the country’s mobile subscriptions database plunged by 1.2 million in June.
An analysis of the operators’ data showed that the decline in the subscription data was exacerbated by the almost 1 million plunge in MTN’s subscriptions.
With the decline in actively connected lines recorded by the operators, the country’s teledensity, which measures the number of active telephone connections per 100 inhabitants living within an area, also slumped to 115.30% from 115.91% recorded in May.
According to NCC, the teledensity is calculated based on a population estimate of 190 million.
MTN, Airtel lost more
The NCC’s statistics show that MTN, which is the largest operator by subscriber number, pulled down the total industry database with a 925,925 decline in its subscriptions.
This brought its total active subscriptions to 84.6 million from 85.6 million it recorded in May 2023.
Airtel also recorded a 337,036 decline in its subscriptions database in the month under review.
The telco’s active subscriptions declined from 60.5 million in May to 60.2 million in June.
However, Glo recorded a 179,851 increase in subscriptions in the month. With this, the operator was able to maintain its position as the second-largest operator by subscriber number in June 2023.
The new activations on the network brought Glo’s total subscriptions to 61.3 million from 61.1 million recorded in May.
The fourth mobile operator, 9mobile also lost 82,234 in the month under review.
The telco’s active subscriptions declined from 13.6 million in May to 13.7 million in June.
Looming SIMs deactivation
The decline in active mobile subscriptions is coming amid a recent directive by the NCC to the telecom operators to deactivate any line that has not been used for any revenue-generating activity for 6 months.
This directive is contained in a new Quality of Service Business Rules released by the telecom regulator.
According to the Commission, the owner of the line would have another 6 months to re-activate the same line, failure upon which he or she loses the line completely.
The latest directive from the telecom regulator may not be unconnected with the rising number of inactive lines across mobile networks.
According to NCC’s subscriber data, unused or abandoned lines across MTN, Airtel, Globacom, and 9mobile networks increased to 96.7 million in February this year.