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- MTN Nigeria mobile subscribers rose almost 10% to 74.1 million in nine months to end September, but it has taken a hit from new SIM registration rules.
- The mobile operator says it is ramping up the SIM registrations to mitigate the churn, which resulted in a fall of mobile subscribers in its third quarter.
- Service revenue increased by 20.6% to 1.45 trillion naira (R60 billion) in the nine months to end September, while profit after tax grew rose 22.1%.
- For more financial news, go to the News24 Business front page.
MTN Nigeria says it is still feeling the impact of the country's SIM registration regulations, which restricted the connectivity of unregistered cellphone users on the network, as mobile subscribers declined by 57 000 in its third quarter to end September.
Despite the marginal quarter-on-quarter decline, Nigeria is still by far MTN Group's largest market, with mobile subscribers still picking up almost 10% to 74.1 million mobile so far in 2022, according to the company's quarterly financial results. MTN is Africa's most populous nation.
The company said the decline was expected following an ongoing directive by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to restrict outgoing calls for subscribers whose SIMs were not linked with National Identity Numbers (NINs).
"As a result, there was a marginal quarter-on-quarter decline in mobile subscribers by approximately 57 000," the company said.
In April, Nigerian authorities ordered cellphone companies to block all phones that are not linked to ID numbers from making outgoing voice calls.
MTN Nigeria is in the process of conducting SIM registrations for users, and as of the end of September, about 10.5 million users who had been restricted from making outgoing calls had submitted their NINs for verification, with 3.8 million reactivated.
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The company said it was continuing to ramp up connections and roll out NIN recovery offers to offset the impact of churn. The average daily gross connection was 48.1% above the pre-directive level, partly driven by the cohort of subscribers who were initially restricted and opted to register new SIMs.
"We anticipate that the increase in 'technical' churn from affected subscribers who stopped activity after the restriction, opting instead to obtain new SIMs, will moderate in Q4 2022," the company said.
In 2015, MTN, which is Africa's largest wireless operator, was sanctioned after failing to disconnect 5.1 million subscribers in Nigeria, amid concerns the lines were being used by Boko Haram insurgents.
The company said on Monday that quarterly voice revenue grew by 4.4% in the nine months to end September, as more customers were reactivated, and gross connections continued to ramp up.
Service revenue increased by 20.6% to 1.45 trillion naira (R60 billion), while profit after tax grew rose 22.1% to 269 billion naira.
Fintech revenue, which is a significant contributor to revenue, increased by 21.9%. The service includes the hugely popular Mobile Money (MoMo) platform, whose active users rose by 68.7% year-on-year to 11.2 million.
