A total of 104,334,729 of the over 170 million SIMs circulating in the country had been registered four days to the final deadline, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) announced Friday, July 21.
As of yesterday, July 20, Globe Telecom Inc has registered 47,587,138 SIMs; Smart Communications Inc, 49,324,526 and DITO Telecommunity, 7,423,065.
Already, the government has given SIM users enough time, from December 27, 2022 to July 25, 2023, or a total of 211 days– to register their SIMs.
State regulators initially set April 26 as the initial deadline for SIM registration but extended it by 90-days more after a low turnout.
Less than half of the country’s registered SIMs were registered, primarily due to the lack of valid government IDs, and challenged digital literacy, according to the telcos.
“The deadline extension (until July 25) gave our customers more time to finish their SIM registration and allowed us to ensure that we covered as many SIM users as we could through various initiatives,” according to Globe.
Since the government extended the deadline in April, the telco deployed new modes to make SIM registration more convenient, including optimizing GCash for the registration of verified users and the rollout of more SIM registration assistance desks across the country.
As of presstime, the DICT has not issued any statement as to whether the SIM registration deadline will be extended one last time.
Telcos urged users to comply with the SIM Registration Act as the law is meant to protect them from fraud and other cybercrime.
Failure to register will lead to the deactivation of their SIMs, and they won’t be able to access mobile services for everyday needs.
