Nigeria’s Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo,asked that telcos “consider giving Nigerians some token airtime & data to ease theirpains” during the Covid-19 lockdown, only MTN and Airtel responded.
Both companies decided it was best to offer free SMS. While MTN was clear on thenumber of SMS per day it was offering its customers, Airtel’s offer came with thecaveat that “a Fair Usage policy applies to prevent network congestion at this timewhen network stability is paramount to keeping all of us connected”Online critics posited that MTN and Airtel should have instead offered reduced orfree data tariffs.
However, in March MTN Nigeria announced that its over 70 millionsubscribers will be able to send 300 free SMS messages per month as part of thecompany’s Y’ello Hope package created to assist its customers as a result of theeconomic implications of the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.
Five weeks later, it appears that the free-SMS route may have been the way to go asreports from MTN’s Q1 financial results shows that over one billion free textmessages were sent by customers within the first four weeks of introducing the offer!The free SMS package allows MTN Nigeria subscribers across the country to send10 free SMS daily for 30 days to all networks.
With the cost of an SMS pegged at N4, that means MTN has incurred an estimated 4billion Naira on text messages in the first month alone.
Predicting what will happen inthe next two months will be next to impossible however, the premise to offer SMSincentives was based on statistics which shows that over 30% of MTN customers arenot data subscribers and are among the most vulnerable Nigerians being severelyimpacted by the virus outbreak.
Other incentives available to MTN customers during the period include free 100MBdaily to access verified information on health platforms such as Nigeria Centre forDisease Control (NCDC), World Health Organisation (WHO) and educationalmaterials on MTN’s Teens platform, mPulse.
In addition, the company suspendedtransaction fees for all Cash2Cash transfers via its Mobile Money (MoMo) AgentNetwork.MTN Nigeria introduced the Y’ello Hope Package as a broad set of interventions tosupport its customers and communities in addition to the government’s efforts tocurb the spread of the COVID-19 virus while ensuring customers remain connectedto their loved ones and other critical resources.
