For the first time since February 2024, Nigeria’s internet usage fell in September 2024. The recent verification of National Identification Numbers connected to SIM cards has been mainly blamed for the drop in subscriptions among telecom companies.

This was in accordance with the Nigerian Communications Commission’s most recent industry statistics report.

In September, data usage dropped to 850,249.09 terabytes, a 0.82 per cent decrease from the August data usage of 853,954.05 terabytes.

This decline was accompanied by a decline in the nation’s subscriber base in September.

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Total number of deactivated SIMs due to NIN-SIM verification 

Thus, a total of 64.3 million lines were deactivated by the four major operators: MTN, Airtel, Globacom, and 9mobile.

According to the NCC report, Globacom and 9mobile were particularly impacted by the verification process, which ended on September 14.

Globacom lost a staggering 43 million lines and finished September with just 19.1 million users, down from 62.1 million active subscriptions in March.

In a similar vein, 9mobile lost around 8 million customers, going from 11.6 million in March to 3.6 million by September.

As of September 2024, there are 154.6 million active subscriptions in the industry, compared to 219 million in March.

MTN lost 3.7 million users during the verification process, but it still held the top spot in the market with 78 million active subscriptions.

Second-place Airtel had 53.7 million subscriptions at the end of September, down from 63.3 million in March, representing a 9.6 million subscription drop during the six-month period.

Nigeria’s adoption of 5G, however, is still making steady headway. Increased interest in high-speed technology was shown by the penetration rate, which increased to 2.19 per cent in September from 2.12 per cent in August and 1.95 per cent in July.