The early introduction of Mobile Number Portability in Pakistan can work as an ideal road map for the scenario after MNP in India.
Capability to retain the mobile number while having the liberty to choose the network of choice promotes and protects the interests of subscribers. It also reinforces the availability of a wide range of high quality, efficient, cost effective and competitive telecommunication services and promotes rapid modernization of telecommunication systems and services. Mobile Number Portability (MNP) also allows the new market entrants to compete with the incumbent operators on level playing field. Due to this reason two new entrants in the Pakistan mobile market, Telenor and Warid were constantly advocating for the introduction of MNP. According to them Pakistan was an ideal case for MNP. “For growing markets like Pakistan, MNP implementation can stimulate a noticeable change to the offerings of the cellular mobile industry by virtue of a flexibility, which is Subscriber oriented, enabling the subscribers to switch their mobile network service provider without requiring a change in their existing mobile number; thereby, promoting competitive environment,” says Omer Haider, General Manager, Govt Relations and Regulatory Affairs, Waird Telecom (pvt) Ltd. “The presence of six cellular mobile network operators with different market share & network coverage, and diversified set of value added services with highly competitive tariff packages, has the potential to attract the subscriber to switch network which offers the best combination to suit the subscriber’s requirements. MNP, in this regard, can generate a stir in the overall Quality of Service (QoS) offering by the players in the cellular network industry of Pakistan,” he further adds. Syed Hasnat Masood, director, Corporate Communications, Telenor Pakistan also echoes the same tune. “The primary intention of MNP has been to provide customer the liberty to choose any network without letting go of a particular mobile number including the code. That makes the competitive environment fairer than before, since now the customers are not forced because of the "number consideration" to stay with an operator they do not like,” says Syed.
With all these talks going on, Mobile Number Portability (MNP) was introduced in Pakistan on 23rd march this year. The Pakistan Telecom Authority, regulatory body for the telecom industry announced that if the customers port their number, they would have to stay for a minimum period of six months with the new operators. For every number, which is ported out from a donor operator to a recipient operator, the recipient operator pays Rs.500 as inter-operator settlement. Realistically speaking, it takes about 3-4 days in case of a prepaid number to be ported out and ported in, and in case of a postpaid number it takes on average 9-10 days due to related financial settlements. Besides, the user has to complete certain formalities such as filling out of form at the walk-in-centers or franchises at the end of the recipient operator, submitting NIC Copy, paying a processing fee, and additionally clearing dues in case of a postpaid number. “Once acceptance is received from the donor operator‚ customer will be able to port his number with in matter of few hours to a few days. Normally donor operators will be able to send acceptance‚ for prepaid numbers in about one day. Actual porting time may depend on the type of connection and any contractual or financial obligations customer may have to fulfill toward the Donor operator,” says Omer.
Before and after MNP
Pakistan is one of the fastest growing mobile markets among the emerging telecom markets and it has a visible impact on the economy of the country. According to a study by Deloitte, Mobile sector contributed a total of Rs. 312 billion to the economy in 2006, representing more than 5% of the GDP. Deloitte further explores that mobile communication in Pakistan has raised GDP growth rates by 0.12% for each 1% increase in penetration. As a result, the increase of about 28 million in mobile subscribers base in the year 2005-06 may have contributed 1.7% of the country’s GDP growth. During this year, the mobile sector grew by 80% whereas average growth rate in last 4 years is more than100%. The total mobile subscriber base till August 2007 is 68.5 million as compared to 34.5 million and 12.7 million in 2006 and 2005 respectively. This tremendous growth is attributed to many internal and external factors starting from deregulation down to implementation of Mobile Number Portability. Pakistan mobile industry is witnessing increasing net addition to total subscriber base for last five years. According to Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) report, the net addition was more than 21 million in 2006 indicating 1.75 million average additions per month. In 2007, the net addition was more than 27 million increasing average addition to 2.3 million per month. In the terms of revenue, with 78% increase in subscriber base and 95% increase in investments, mobile revenue grew by 48% only in 2006-07. The mobile industry was growing at an average rate of 80% till last year, however the growth rate dropped this year. Following the normal trend, the industry is moving towards stability and the cost of attracting and retaining subscribers is increasing. Telenor and Warid have witnessed huge growth in their total revenues that have grown by more than 200%. Revenues of Mobilink and Ufone grew at proportional rate. Despite this, Mobilink sustained its position as a major contributor in the total revenue of the industry with almost 50% share, due to its sizeable presence. There was a decline in the Instaphone’s revenue for another consecutive year. Out of the total industry revenue, more than 90% came from voice services and almost 5% from the data services.
For analyzing the after effect of MNP, we will have to look at the statistics in a different way. Out of the total 68.5 million mobile subscription, 66.6 millions are prepaid users and only 1.8 millions postpaid users. This ratio is acting as a big deterrent for MNP. In general perception, postpaid users are considered to be the serious users, since they are fixed customers for any operator. They have fewer tendencies to change their numbers in comparison to prepaid users. Now if we talk about the individual performances of the companies, the subscribers of Mobilink, the largest operator, increased by 50% (9 million). Despite such a substantial rise, the total subscriber share of Mobitel decreased from 50% in the year 2006 to 41% in the year 2007. This clearly indicates that Mobitel acquired new customers but also lost a good chunk of its existing customers and a part of this can be attributed to MNP. Ufone, the second largest operator, has seen an increase in subscriber base by 85% in 2007 but its market share remained constant at 22%. There are two operators in Pakistan, which started their operations in 2004 and have grown up remarkably during these three years. Telenor not only added almost 7 million subscribers in the year 2007 but also improved its subscriber share to 17% in 2007 from 10% in 2006. It seems obvious that Telenor acquired maximum customers lost by Mobilink. Telenor bagged upon better quality of service and offering features like fast Internet access through their networks. At the time of introduction of MNP, Telenor was the only company with its whole network completely EDGE enabled. The company has largely attracted the upper level business users by these offerings. Undoubtedly, Telenor is the largest beneficiary of the MNP. The second operator in question is Warid Telecom. Like Telenor, Warid also registered high growth after commencing services in the Pakistan market. The total subscriber’s share of Warid stood to 17% in the year 2006-07 from 14% in the year 2005-06. In the year 2006-07, these two were the only operators who increased their subscriber’s percentage. They added more than 3 million subscribers in the last six moths alone.
The first six months after the introduction of the MNP is considered to be the deciding factor for any market because this is the time when maximum users port their number. For obvious reasons, MNP has made a transformation in the market but against the normal expectations, it has not happened in a big way. In a market of more than 60 million subscribers, the transfer rate has been less than one percent. The operators blame this on the low awareness about MNP in the market. “Customer awareness remains very low as no mass awareness and effective advertisement campaigns have been executed- neither by the regulator nor by the operators. Without public awareness true potential of MNP has not been fully realized,” says Omer. “With increased awareness of MNP, we will see greater impact on portings, quality of networks and customer services,” agrees Syed Hasnat.
The immediate effect of MNP is the improvement in the quality of service of all the providers. To compete with new players like Warid and Telenor, Mobilink has improved its quality of service exceptionally. The focus has shifted from addition of new customers to retention of existing customers.
India on the go
India is going to have the MNP from January next year. In the first stage, it will be introduced in four metros. The announcement came at a time when experts were debating over the right time for MNP. From the operator’s side it has got mixed response. As expected GSM operators are not among the happier lot. T V Ramachandran of the Cellular Operators' Association of India says,” Mobile Number Portability has been introduced to benefit a particular operator that is seeking to enter the GSM segment.” The arrow has been marked towards Reliance, which has got national licenses off late to start its GSM services. MTNL has welcomed the steps taken by the Government in announcing Mobile Number portability. MTNL is confident that it will generate additional opportunity for MTNL as it is expected that some of the high-end customers will be facilitated to migrate to MTNL. MTNL had entered GSM Mobile Services almost six years later than the competitors due to various reasons which included the court case filed by the competitors to prevent MTNL's entry into Mobile Services. According to MTNL, the high-end customers, who had already subscribed to the competitors, could not migrate to MTNL since such customers do not prefer a change of number. The steps taken by the Government to provide number portability will facilitate MTNL to cater to the needs of such customers. Reliance Communications chief Anil Ambani also expressed his happiness over the announcement. "This is a forward-looking initiative. It is pro-competition, pro-consumer and above all, pro-choice. For the first time, in the four metros GSM operators will face real competition," says Ambani. As expected CDMA association AUSPI has also welcomed the decision. S C Khanna of AUSPI says, “It is an important and effective tool for ensuring effective competition and improved quality of service in the mobile telecom service sector, which will ultimately benefit the subscribers at large." Vodafone and Bharti refused to comment on this when contacted.
Future ahead
India is a bigger market as compared to Pakistan. According to TRAI report, the total mobile subscribers in India till June 2007 are 184.92 million. The GSM operators command 73% of the total number while rest is with CDMA operators. The postpaid customers, which are considered to be the serious users, amount around 12% of the total mobile subscribers. Considering this size the market has enough opportunities if not great. It will provide a battlefield for customer retention, specially, when new players like Reliance and Spice are trying to roll out a national GSM service. But with teledensity as low as 15%, it would be interesting to see whether the service providers will concentrate more on exploring new areas and adding more customers than retention of existing customers. “Since the telecom market is far from saturated, the implementation of MNP is likely to face stiff resistance from operators. The reason for this is the high implementation costs which the regulator might not allow firms to transfer to subscribers. Secondly, India predominantly has been a prepaid market and it is much more convenient to obtain a prepaid connection than to wait for the completion of the porting process,” feels Romal Shetty, executive director, KPMG. “Although MNP will be a challenge in terms of implementation, costs, pricing and benefits to the subscribers and operators, it will surface in India due to the growth of the market and increased competition,” he further adds.
From the experience of other nations, the first six months after the introduction will decide the euphoria of MNP. Once the operators arm themselves with better quality of service, the effect will be less visible. For all that, we will have to wait till April next year, when MNP will finally hit the door.
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