By Martin Ekpeke
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has adduced reasons why the number of active mobile subscribers in the Nigerian telecommunications industry experienced a sharp drop from 154, 529, 780 in December 2016 to 143, 064, 490 in June 2017, thereby losing a whopping 11, 465, 290 active subscribers in seven months.
The Commission said a report of a survey, it conducted a few months ago suggested that the recession, which Nigeria entered into in 2016 and disruptive technologies are largely the main reasons many Nigerians have decided to drop some of their mobile phone lines.
The Executive Commissioner, Stakeholder’s Management at NCC, Mr. Sunday Dare disclosed this yesterday in Lagos during a Media Chat with Information and Communications Technology Journalists.
“We found out from the report of a survey we conducted at the Commission that recession and disruptive technologies, also known as Over the Top are the reasons for drop in active mobile subscribers,” Dare submitted.
He revealed that the survey was conducted because as the telecom regulator, it was very worried that the industry, which is presently contributing about 10 percent is losing subscribers.
The Executive Commissioner explained that owing to the present economic challenges, many Nigerians decided to drop some of their lines because their disposable income is not enough to take care of many lines.
He added that consolidation and the relatively affordable data offerings, where many subscribers have the option of making calls using data also affected the drop in active mobile subscribers. He argues that many subscribers have seen reasons not to have many phone lines since it is possible to make a data call to all network providers from one network and the tariff remains the same.