The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has revealed that a total of 107 million mobile lines connected to the networks of MTN, Globacom, Airtel, and 9mobile have become inactive as of March this year.
According to the latest subscriber data released by the Commission, the four telecom operators had a total of N306.3 million connected lines as of March. However, active lines across the networks at the end of the month stood at 199.2 million.
A mobile line is said to be inactive if it is not used by the subscriber to make or receive calls and/or access data services for 90 days, at the minimum. Such lines are separated from active lines as they generate no revenue for telecom operators within the stated period.
While the telecom operators have always had inactive lines alongside the increase in active users and new activations, the ban on new SIM registration and the inability of many subscribers to retrieve their lines between December 9, 2020, and April 19, 2021, worsened the situation as abandoned lines continued to pile up each month.
Industry analysts have also attributed the increasing number of inactive lines, which predated the recent ban, to the fact that SIM cards are now easy to acquire and dump.
