Telecom revenue threatened as abandoned mobile lines hit 96.7 million

According to the latest subscriber data released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the abandoned lines cut across the networks of MTN, Airtel, Globacom, and 9mobile.

Mobile lines are considered inactive when a subscriber fails to make use of such lines for a period of 90 days.

The absence of activities like making or receiving calls, and accessing data services for the period on mobile lines would make the lines declared dormant and labelled inactive.

The telecom operators now separate the abandoned lines from active lines as they have failed to yield revenue during the stated period.

As of February, the number of connected phone lines retained by the four mobile network operators was 323.6 million.

This figure dropped to 226.8 million by the end of February 2023 thus showing the number of inactive mobile lines to be 96.7 million.

With this drop, the revenue generation stream of the telecom operators was negatively hit as they were able to generate revenue from just 70% of their customers during the period.

The drop in mobile line usage may further cause a plunge in revenue generation in the telecom sector and according to Naira metrics, an insider in the industry has revealed that some mobile network companies are behind their revenue targets.

The drop in the number of active mobile lines during the period has been traced to the recent naira crunch which cut across the country.

The large dependence on cashless transactions was also reported to have piled pressure on the network infrastructure which in turn, led to more network failures across the industry.