Mobile phone companies have processed 85 million SIMs for re-verification through biometric verification system, suggests latest data made available to ProPakistani.
According to data made available to ProPakistani, mobile phone companies have successfully verified 74 million SIMs during two and half month re-verification drive that is going to end on April 13th, 2015.
Another 11 million SIMs were blocked as they were disowned by their owners.
With this number, another 18 million SIMs are still pending verification, for which mobile phone companies have another 15 or so days to complete the re-verification process.
At the end of re-verification drive i.e. after April 13th, 2015, all un-verified SIMs will get blocked, and customers owning those SIMs will have to get their SIMs replaced by paying extra fee for SIM replacement to reinstate their numbers.
Also Read: Ufone Announces Sim Verification Process for Overseas Pakistanis
Market sources tell that number of re-verifications per day have now dropped to below 200,000 instances per day, as compared to an average of 1.5 million per day that telcos had maintained before February 26th, 2015.
Officials of mobile phone companies say that they are putting all possible efforts to ensure that maximum number of customers are reverified before the deadline. Officials told ProPakistani that mobile phone companies are now focusing on rural areas, especially in Southern Punjab and Internal Sindh. High paying customers who have not re-verified SIMs are being approached in person now.
Mobile phone companies are fearing that they may have to face extreme conditions after the deadline as millions of SIMs will get blocked and all such customers will at once head to franchises/service centres for restoration of their services.
These millions of customers with blocked SIMs would naturally want to get their connections restored with-in no time and that is when the support system of mobile phone companies is likely to get choked.
Market experts suggest that at least 10-12 million SIMs will never get re-verified as these connections are either dormant, or used by voice exchanges, spammers and those who send Benazir income support messages.
Data shared with ProPakistani reveal that Mobilink is leading the charts with Telenor at second position.
Check below graphs for more insights:
Below are details about unique number of CNICs that telecom operators have verified. In other words these are unique number of customers for each operator.
