The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has revealed that Telecommunication companies have lost 19.20 million subscribers since the Federal Government began linking National Identity Number (NIN) with SIM cards.
This was contained in a new industry statistics released by the NCC on Tuesday.
According to the commission, the subscriber base fell from 207,907,709 in November 2020, to 188,705,734 in April 2021.
MTN, the most affected, lost over 7,202,757 subscribers lost, while Airtel, Globacom and 9mobile lost 7,054,115; 4,490,531 and 408,904 subscribers respectively.
The data also showed that the telcos lost 3.7 million subscribers in April as the subscriber base fell from 192,413,613 in March.
The sale and registration of new SIM cards was banned by the Federal Government in December 2020 and a deadline was issued for people to link their National Identity Number with their SIM cards.
This has since been moved to June 30, 2021.