The losers and gainers of porting

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on Monday released a report on the port-out activities of mobile network operators in the country.

The report reveals that at least 10,210 subscribers have dumped the services of Globacom in the last two months, for other Global System for Mobile (GSM) communications (GSM) networks.

According to the report, Globacom lost a total of 6,930 customers in April and 3,280 subscribers in March 2014, while Mobile Telecommunications Network (MTN) Nigeria lost 3,835 subscribers to other networks in April, as against the 5,489 lost in March.

“Etisalat Nigeria lost 1,817 subscribers to other networks in April and lost 3,157 in March 2014, while Airtel Nigeria lost 1,601 subscribers to other networks in April and 1,457 in March 2014,” it revealed.

A total of 14,183 telecom users engaged in porting-out activities across the networks in April, as against the 13,383 recorded in March.

It, however, said that Globacom enjoyed the exercise as it led the gainers’ list with an additional 7,955 customers joining its network in April.

Etisalat came second on the gainers’ list, adding 3,280 subscribers to its customer strength in same period.

Also third on the line of the gainers’ list was Airtel with 2,816 subscribers in April, while the MTN network had just 552 additional customers.

According to the report, “14,603 customers participated in the port-in activity in April, while 13,757 port-in activity was recorded in March.”

The porting activities showed that telecom users were not comfortable with the services of the operators, hence, the movement from one network to the other.

The Mobile Number Portability (MNP) was flagged off on April 22, 2013 by the NCC, with the aim of deepening competition in the industry.