Nigeria records 122,110 porting activities in Q2 2016

By ADEDEJI ADEYEMI FAKOREDE

TELECOMS network operators carried out a total of 122,110 mobile number porting activities in the second quarter of 2016, a recent report from the Nigeria Communication Commission has released by the Nigeria Bureau of statistics (NBS).

This rising tide of mobile number portability adoption by Nigerians is one of the key highlights from the Nigeria Telecommunications sector report Q2 2016 published by NBS, the national agency responsible for development and management of official statistics in the country.

The report reviewed by National Daily shows that a total of 61,754 incoming porting activities were carried out for Q2 2016, an increase of 12.54% when compared to the second quarter of 2015.

Mobile number portability (MNP) enables mobile telephone users to retain their mobile telephone numbers when changing from one mobile network carrier to another.
The report also reveals that Etisalat has the highest incoming porting activity in Q2 2016 with 57.83% of the total incoming porting activity while MTN, the largest mobile network in Nigeria by subscriber base, has the lowest with 4.67%.

MTN recorded a large increase in the number of porters, from 1,353 in the first quarter to 2,878, or more than double, with 31.60% year on year the increase.

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The report further reveals that Globacom, the second national operator and number two Telecoms Company by user base, accounted for the second smallest amount of incoming activity at 6.29%. The company however, recorded a quarterly decrease of 33.96%, from 5,683 to 3,872 between the first and second quarter, with a year-on-year increase of 6.61%.

In contrast to the other providers, Airtel recorded very little change in incoming porting activity relative to the previous quarter, recording only a 0.03% increase.
On the outgoing porting activities, there were a total of 60,356 outgoing porters recorded in Q2 2016, an increase of 13.94% relative to the 52,973 outgoing porters recorded in the first quarter of 2016.

Globacom recorded the largest increase in the Q2 2016 with an increase of 76.37%, from 7,152 in the first quarter to 12,614 in the second quarter of 2016. Year-on-year the increase was lower at 47.00%, from 8,581 outgoing porters in the second quarter of 2015.

Etisalat recorded the second largest increase with 7,653 outgoing porters, having 59.44% increase compared to Q1, which had 4,800 outgoing porters. Also the Q2 record shows a 28.88% year-on-year increase from 5,938 in the second quarter of 2015.

The number of outgoing porters recorded by Airtel was 13,192; which was 32.12% higher than the 9,985 recorded in the previous quarter and 26.06% higher than the 10,465 recorded in the second quarter of 2015.

By contrast, MTN recorded 26,897 outgoing porters in the second quarter of 2016, which represents a 13.34% decline relative to the 31,036 recorded in the previous quarter and a decline of 9.25% relative to the 29,637 outgoing porters recorded in the second quarter of 2015.

Airtel, Etisalat and Globacom each contributed to the increase, and recorded relatively large growth rates both year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter. MTN was the exception and the phone company recorded decreased porting over both periods.

Despite the above changes in porting activity, the ranking of the four providers remained the same in terms of the share of outgoing porting activity.