Mobile Number Portability - 2011

The first-ever opinion poll on MNP was conducted across 8 major cities(Delhi, Lucknow, Kolkata, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad), covering both men and women(4564 subscribers) older than 18 years, between DEC 15,2010 and JAN 10,2011.

Highlights Of The Survey:

• a significant number of subscribers are dissatisfied with their service providers – More than one out of six mobile phone subscribers (17.6%) want to switch over to another telecom company. Given India’s mobile subscriber base of more than 700 million, it could mean that up to 120 million people want to switch.
• Airtel(31.9%) and Vodafone Essar(19.6%) will gain the most – One out of three consumers who are considering switching want to sign up with Airtel, and one out of five who want to change will go to Vodafone Essar. Followed by others(13.7%), Idea Cellular(9.7%) and Aircel(8.5%).
• BSNL GSM, Reliance CDMA, Reliance GSM & Tata Indicom will be the losers in terms of subscriber base.
• The reason to port is equally shared between ‘dissatisfied with the service(49.1%)’ and ‘want to change just for the heck of it(50.9%)’.
• women make more loyal subscribers — 14.3% want to change compared to 18.8% men.
• most dissatisfied customers were found in Hyderabad(37.3%), followed by Delhi(23%) and Ahmedabad(19.6%)
• older customers(41-50 yrs : 18.7%) are more demanding subscribers whereas housewives(13.6%) constitute the ‘least demanding’ lot.
• Post-paid(19.3%) customers are more dissatisfied than the pre-paid(17.4%) ones

Note#1 : figures indicate the percentage of respondents choosing a particular option.
Note#2 : Interviews were carried out using a fully structured questionnaire and the results were collated using appropriate statistical tools.
Source : HT-MARS SURVEY