Telecoms operators in Nigeria have sold additional 9.6 million Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) lines to new customers joining their networks, investigation byNew Telegraph has shown. It was learnt that the rivalry among the telecoms networks, mostly the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) operators, including MTN, Glo, Airtel and Etisalat, to get new customers on their networks got stiffer in the first half of the year. As at the end of December last year, the number of sold and active lines on the mobile networks stood at 139.1 million. From January and end of June this year, the GSM networks bloated their active phone lines by activating additional 9.6 million SIM cards, bringing the connected and active lines on all the networks in the country to over 148 million.
New Telegraph gathered that the new SIMs activations represent a 6.9 per cent growth in the national subscriber base. The development, experts say, showed the continuous traction being recorded in the nation’s telecoms sector, which various studies have identified as a haven for telecoms investment. In March, this year, the seeming jostling for more subscribers to boost their market shares in Nigerian telecoms sector assumed an alarming dimension, as Airtel began a marketing onslaught, targeted at displacing Globacom from its current position as the second market leader. Airtel weaved its strategy around a new customer proposition tagged ‘SmartConnect,’ which it introduced in Lagos, ostensibly to attract new subscribers to its network at a faster pace. T
hrough the initiative, the Indian telecoms company started offering a four-in-one family SIM pack (four SIM lines), which comes with mouthwatering benefits to only new subscribers upon activation of the SIMs. Findings showed that Airtel specifically targeted the offer at new subscribers while excluding its existing subscribers from benefiting from it, a strategy, which revealed Airtel’s intent to attract new customers that will help boost its subscriber base in the next few months beyond Globacom’s current subscriber base.
Head, Mass Segment, Marketing at Airtel, Mr Bimbo Jolaosho, had said: “Nigeria is a nation of vibrant, aspirationfilled people, who want to remain connected always and Airtel provides the opportunity to do this and that is why we are introducing ‘Smart Connect,’ which is the best way to connect with each other.” The efforts by Airtel Nigeria to reclaim its second place, which it narrowly lost to Globacom in the second quarter of 2014, failed as Globacom emerged the second largest telecoms firm in the country based on subscriber base, according to official industry statistics by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). It would be recalled that Airtel started 2014 as the second market leader, but was displaced by the end of second quarter, with Globacom, which hitherto was in third place, becoming second largest telecoms network in subscriber base pull. According to the latest NCC data as at April, this year, MTN had 61.7 million active sold mobile lines on its network, representing 43 per cent of the total mobile subscriptions in the country.
This is followed by Globacom, which now has 30.4 million active lines representing 21 per cent while Airtel came third with 29.5 million subscriber (20 per cent) and Etisalat coming fourth with 22.5 million (16 per cent). Despite the much-touted potential in broadband revenue for telecoms operators, experts say that voice remains the largest source of revenue for telecoms operators. It was gathered that the quest to attract more subscribers to their networks in order to increase their revenue generation in the face of increasing capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operational expenditure (OPEX) has led some operators to selling pre-registered SIM cards, which is illegal, in the sector. Over the years, the NCC had had to impose heavy sanctions erring operators for failure to adhere to the regulatory provision banning them from selling pre-registered SIMs.
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