  We analysed the $\phi$ meson production in central Ni+Ni collisions at the
beam kinetic energy of 1.93A GeV with the FOPI spectrometer and found the
production probability per event of $[8.6 ~\pm~ 1.6 ~(\text{stat}) \pm 1.5
~(\text{syst})] \times 10^{-4}$. This new data point allows for the first time
to inspect the centrality dependence of the subthreshold $\phi$ meson
production in heavy-ion collisions. The rise of $\phi$ meson multiplicity per
event with mean number of participants can be parameterized by the power
function with exponent $\alpha = 1.8 \pm 0.6$. The ratio of $\phi$ to
$\text{K}^-$ production yields seems not to depend within the experimental
uncertainties on the collision centrality, and the average of measured values
was found to be $0.36 \pm 0.05$.
