SIM subscriptions drop by 0.2million on clean-up exercise

By Steve Umidha

The number of active SIM subscriptions declined by more than 200,000 in three months to March 2022, according to the latest industry statistics, which attributed the drop to the ongoing clean-up exercise of subscriber databases by mobile operators.

Latest quarterly data by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), shows that SIM subscriptions stood at 64.9 million between January and March this year, down from 65.1 million subscriptions the sector had as of last December.

“The decline in SIM subscriptions is partly attributed to the ongoing SIM registration exercise during which a number of SIM cards have been deactivated,” CA noted in its third quarter sector statistics report for the financial year 2021/2022 which ended in March.

That drop represents a 131.4 percent mobile (SIM) penetration rate whose debility is expected to persist owing to the mandatory SIM card registration exercise by the State.

According to the sector regulator, the exercise – whose deadline has since been extended to October 15, is intended to decrease cases of digital fraud and cybercrime that have been lush in the local telecommunications sector.

Prior to the extension review, CA had directed all mobile operators to clean up their subscriber databases by April 15, failure to which it will start deactivating all unregistered SIM cards.

But the communications agency was forced to rescind those calls due to widespread public uproar after the majority of Kenyans discerned mischievousness in the entire process and its timeliness which also coincided with the upcoming August general elections.

As a result, the authority was pushed to clarify those intentions, prompting its newly appointed Chief executive Ezra Chiloba to review its rush deadlines by a further 6 months from April 15. In the meantime CA said it would assess progress of the exercise on a monthly basis.

CA clarified that the exercise has been an ongoing process over the last few years, with the planned switch-off following an audit that had unearthed loopholes in adherence to SIM card registration laws by mobile network operators.

“Our data shows an impressive compliance since we made that call in 2018, however, we now feel the need to protect consumers of such products, some of whom often fall prey to fraudsters,” CA said in a statement.

The switching off of such SIMs, according to the authority, is also aimed at curbing crime cases believed to be perpetrated by anonymous mobile phone subscribers – who target unsuspecting users.

Previous attempts have seen telecom firms such as Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom Kenya, for instance, switch off hundreds of thousands of such SIMs that are not properly registered.

CA believes that a growing number of mobile users are obtaining new SIMs but are not presenting them for proper record keeping. Kenyan adults above the age of 18 own at least two SIMs and are allowed by law to have up to four of such chips on their gadgets.

The said audit was undertaken in September 2018, which revealed that a large number of SIM cards at the time had either been unregistered, partly registered, improperly or procedurally registered and fraudulently registered while others were registered against multiple owners.

The regulator who relies on mobile operators for such data, is yet to make public the number of unregistered SIMs in the hands of thousands of users across the country – despite its renewed push for such exercise.

Meanwhile, CA’s latest data further shows that mobile penetration dropped by 2.5 percentage points, on the review of the country’s population figures which rose from 48.7 million to 49.4 million from the recently released Economic Survey 2022 findings.

Active SIM (Mobile) Subscriptions refers to those SIM Cards used at least once in the last three months and have generated revenue through making or receiving a call or carrying out a non-voice activity such as sending or receiving an SMS, accessing the Internet, Airtime top-up, transacting using mobile money and mobile banking).

“Activities that do not result in revenue generation such as balance enquiry, unanswered calls, and password resets, amongst other free services, do not qualify a customer account as active,” CA notes.