MNP: Now that the figures are out

Speaking on the figures, Deolu Ogunbanjo, the president of National Association of Telecoms Subscribers, said the truth has indeed come out as to which operator is the choice of subscribers, the advert noise notwithstanding. According to Ogunbanjo, the MNP result has revealed that Nigeria has discerning telecoms subscribers who can’t be fooled by “mere advert”.  […]

Speaking on the figures, Deolu Ogunbanjo, the president of National Association of Telecoms Subscribers, said the truth has indeed come out as to which operator is the choice of subscribers, the advert noise notwithstanding. According to Ogunbanjo, the MNP result has revealed that Nigeria has discerning telecoms subscribers who can’t be fooled by “mere advert”.   
 Also, a telecom engineer told Daily Trust at the weekend that he was quite surprised with the porting trend. “I had thought that the leading operator (in term of subscribers’ number) would have more porting subscribers than the others. But alas, it did not turn out to be like that”, the telecoms expert who pleaded not to be named said.
On the implication of this, he said the figures as released by the regulator of the industry would for now be a guide to those who are buying SIM cards for the first time on which operator to patronize. Not only that, it would make the losing operators to improve on their network so that they would not keep on losing, he said.     
NCC’s Director of Public Affairs Tony Ojobo said that MNP has deepened competition so far and given subscribers a choice to switch networks without losing their unique numbers, adding that this is one of the gains of the commercial roll out of GSM services in Nigeria.
Ojobo confirmed that within the first month after the April launch of MNP in the country, among an overall number of subscribers that switched service providers in the telecoms market, MTN Nigeria topped the losers’ table.
 The Public Relations officials of the GSM big four did not respond to Daily Trust questions yesterday but an official of Quandrant Company, a PR firm that handles Etisalat account, said the NCC result has shown that Etisalat is the best network in Nigeria.
The MNP figures showed that MTN is the first casualty of the mobile number portability scheme as it lost largest number of subscribers among the big four operators.
 The company recorded 49 per cent of porting loss in May and 47 per cent loss in the month of June, making it the biggest loser so far. It only recorded 10 percent and nine per cent porting gains in May and June respectively, according to the figures.
On the other hand, the NCC figures revealed that Etisalat is now the bride of Nigerian subscribers as the telecoms company recorded the least loss and had the highest gains of porting subscribers in May and June.
Etisalat, it said, had 44 percent porting gain in May and 50 per cent in June, the highest porting gain so far.
It only recorded 11 per cent loss in May and also 11 per cent in June, according to the telecoms industry regulator.
Ironically, MTN Nigeria, the largest network by subscriber numbers launched its widely-celebrated “Saka Don Port” campaign on the same day MNP was launched.
 In the controversial TV commercial, MTN Nigeria used an actor known as Saka, who has hitherto featured in TV commercials for rival Etisalat Nigeria, to promote its number porting campaign urging subscribers to migrate to its network.
Glo followed MTN Nigeria by recording losses of 23 per cent; Airtel Nigeria was number three with overall loss of 17 per cent.
Glo only gained 17 per cent in May and 29 per cent in June while Airtel made 29 per cent gain in May and 12 per cent in June.
The gaining operators may not start singing victory song yet but with this first porting report subscribers have seen, at least for now, which operator’s house to enter and which one to bid farewell to.