Reasons considered by several Nigerian telecoms subscriber before choosing to port to another network than removing the Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) and registering SIM of their networks of new choice have emerged.
It would be recalled that Mobile Number Portability (MNP), which was launched in Nigeria on April 22, 2013, across all networks, is designed to offer subscribers the opportunity to port their GSM numbers from one network to another, without losing their original numbers.
Key consideration by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), was to drive Quality of Service (QoS) competition and in the process grow massive investment because QoS is a function of how reliable a network is to a subscriber.
A new report by Business Hilights Economic Research Team (BHERT), the Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) of Business Hilights revealed a number of reasons including avoidance of erosion of confidence, observed ease of porting, no cost attached on both ends, retention of saved numbers and personal details on SIM card and ease of re-porting back after 90 days of initial move.
The survey also discovered that majority of subscribers that ported or are in the habit of porting due to their status (high end), to limit chances of suspicion by people that have held them at high esteem over time.
According to a recent data released by the NCC, about 94,656 subscribers ported in the first half of this year, 2017.
Details also showed that in January, about 16,159 subscribers ported out of the networks, which rose to 19,719 in February customers shifted from one network operator to another.
However, the trend dropped sharply in March where about 16,835 subscribers ported.
The figure rose again in April to 21,170, and more than halved May, as 11,060 subscribers changed their SIM cards, and dropping further to 9,713 in the month of June.
Between January and June 2017, Airtel lost more of its customers, as about 29,235 subscribers left the network. This is followed by MTN, which lost 27,982 users on its network. Globacom and 9mobile formerly Etisalat lost 26,611 and 10,828 subscribers respectively to competition.
There were clear impacts of the ports on the market share of all the network operators within the six months period as MTN market share fell to 37.2 per cent with 53.1 million subscribers; Globacom controls 26.1 per cent with 37.4 million subscribers.
Airtel has 34.1 million subscribers with 23.9 per cent market share, while 9mobile, which has had a running battle over its failure to service adequately its $1.2billion syndicated loans from 13 banks, had 12.6 per cent market share and provides services for 18 million subscribers.
