Sunday, December 04, 2011

Apparently, Mobile number portability not much of a hit

I saw a report on NDTV: Mobile number portability not much of a hit

To be truthful, this report surprises me. The following are the observations given in the report.

1) Only over two percent subscribers have so far opted for the service --> Why is 2% such a bad number? The idea of number portability is if a customer does not like the service of a service provider, he can change the provider without changing his number. How do you determine if this is a hit? if 20% opted, does it become a hit? Isn't that idea idiotic? if 20% changed doesn't it say a really bad name for the mobile service providers in India? Should they be happy if only 2% opted for the service instead of 20%. This measure is only to ensure that an option exists for the customer and mobile service providers must do their utmost to retain them.

2) A key reason for the slow port-in and port-out is that 95 per cent of the country's mobile customers are in the pre-paid category says Samaresh Parida, director (strategy) of Vodafone India --> So pre-paid customers do not mind changing numbers as and when they want? Is that the interpretation. Is there any analysis to come up to this conclusion. My singular thought is a customer is happy to carry 2-3 prepaid numbers for himself in his dual SIM phones and uses the one that fits his need or provides him better service. I do not think any reasonable conclusion can be drawn from the statement above.

3) "In order to gain customers you need to be different. Quality of service and plans offered by most of the operators are almost the same," said Abhishek Chauhan, senior consultant for Information and Communications Technology (ICT) practice, Frost and Sullivan, a research and consulting firm. --> Possibly the one rational statement in this report.

1 comment:

RK said...

Completely agree. The agency has overstepped a little by producing a report which has no proper analysis. May be something fishy?