The initial response from customers for MNP (mobile number portability) in HARYANA has been discouraging.
MNP enables a subscriber to change his service provider while keeping the mobile number unchanged.
Since its launch in Haryana last month, less than 1 percent (30,000-35,000) of the 17 million subscribers expressed their desire to change their service provider. This number is spread across 11 service providers.
Another surprise is that 97-98 percent of the requesters are pre-paid subscribers; it was expected that a large number of these porters would post-paid subscribers (3 percent of Haryana’s base). Also, operators anticipate only 1.5 percent subscribers to churn out in the next two months. A trend seen among the shifters is that a large number of them are shifting from CDMA to GSM.
Executives at Tata Teleservices have disclosed that 21 percent of their subscribers have opted for a shift while they anticipate that on an incremental basis 35 percent will be the subscriber inflow.
High paying post-paid customers are what Reliance Communication is looking for since 1 post-paid customer is equal to 10 pre-paid customers. An RCom spokesperson says: “Of the total movement on postpaid for RCom, 80 per cent are port in (those who want to join RCom). In value terms, this is 73 per cent of the total value of port ins and port outs (those who wish to leave Rcom) put together.”
Another major player, Vodafone Essar, has revealed that their ratio of inports to outports is 2:1. “Once a request comes for a change, most operators are calling the subscriber, pleading not to shift. If that does not work, the processing of the request is being delayed. However, we all know we can’t do this too long,” says a leading operator.
It is clear that operators are trying hard to retain their subscribers, mainly post-paid.
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