MTN slashes subscriber forecast after massive disconnections in Nigeria

23 Oct 2015
Chibuike Oguh

Summary

The telecoms firm cut its forecast of additional subscribers this year by 12 percent to 14.8 million.

Sifiso Dabengwa, MTN Group President and CEO

MTN Group has slashed its full-year subscriber forecast after it disconnected five million subscribers in Nigeria, the telecoms company’s biggest market, in the aftermath of a government-ordered registration exercise.

The telecoms firm cut its forecast of additional subscribers this year by 12 percent to 14.8 million, compared with a previous forecast of 16.75 million, according to a statement from MTN.

MTN said its subscriber base across the more than 20 countries where it operates in Africa and the Middle East grew 0.9 percent quarter-on-quarter to 233 million in the three months ending in September.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Nigeria’s telecom regulator, had ordered telecoms operators to disconnect subscribers who failed to provide their biometrics data by the end of August. MTN said it disconnected 5 million subscribers in Nigeria, but later reconnected about 3.4 million.


Chibuike Oguh is Financial Nigeria's Frontier Markets Analyst


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