Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Secretary Ivan John Uy said that DICT is "on target" for more than 105 million Filipinos who have registered their Subscriber Identity Modules (SIM).
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“We are on target, although our original target was 160 million more or less—that was 160 million of active SIM cards that were sold. We all know that a large portion of that were used for telemarketing or scamming,” Uy told reporters on July 25. He emphasized that the legitimacy of SIM card registrations might reach 70 percent, considering that some subscribers may own more than one SIM card. “Realistically, we’re looking at 70 percent. If we look at SIM card registrations from other countries, about 70 percent are legitimate. So we were expecting between 100 million to 110 million revenue-generating SIM cards. So at 105 million, we are on target,” he added. After the extension of the registration deadline, a total of 114 million SIM were registered based on the latest data from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) as of July 31. Read: [https://mb.com.ph/2023/7/31/68-of-si-ms-registered-as-of-final-deadline](https://mb.com.ph/2023/7/31/68-of-si-ms-registered-as-of-final-deadline) Of the 114 million successful SIM registrations, Smart Communications Inc. registered 79 percent or 52.5 million of its 66.3 million subscribers. While Globe Telecom Inc. had 62 percent, or 53.7 million of its 86.7 million subscribers. The DITC reiterated to the public that failure to register in the remaining last five-day grace period on July 30 would lead to permanent SIM deactivation to comply with the law. *(Rhowen Del Rosario)* Read: [https://mb.com.ph/2023/7/24/failure-to-comply-with-july-25-sim-card-registration-deadline-will-risk-customers-to-permanent-cancellation-of-mobile-services-as-well-as-communication-disruption](https://mb.com.ph/2023/7/24/failure-to-comply-with-july-25-sim-card-registration-deadline-will-risk-customers-to-permanent-cancellation-of-mobile-services-as-well-as-communication-disruption)