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Reliance Communications Mobile Number Portability Launch

RCom’s Inputs Regarding Mobile Number Portability Launch, Mr. Mahesh Prasad, President (Marketing), Reliance Communications

Reliance Mobile Number Portability

1. Reliance Communications has been the strongest advocate for Mobile Number Portability (MNP) over the last 2-3 years.

2. MNP empowers customers to choose the operator of his choice while retaining the same number

3. The growth of mobile telephony in the country clearly shows that the high-usage/high-end post-paid & prepaid customers, were stuck with incumbent Mobile operators, with number stickiness being the main reason.

4. The global experience shows that the customers are keen on porting in to a service provider offering better network quality, full suite of voice and dat products, superior customer experience and enriched VAS offerings.

5. Reliance offers amongst the industry’s best network quality on its 3G, GSM and CDMA networks, with a plethora of applications backed by a robust customer service infrastructure. Reliance Communications is confident that with the superior portfolio offered on Reliance 3G, CDMA and GSM networks including wireless broadband services, would attract a large number of customers who opt to Port-in their existing numbers

6. Reliance 3G services offering ultra high speed video and data applications would be amongst the significant attributes that would drive the customer choice of opting for Reliance services in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkatta, Chandigarh, Punjab and many more towns where Reliance 3G services are being rolled out in the coming weeks/months.

7. On Tariffs: There have been unprecedented tariff cuts over the last 18 months. Price is one amongst many components in the overall mix. We do not think that Tariffs / price will alone play a significant role in customer’s decision.

8. On the issue of  CDMA Customers would move to GSM: MNP is technology agnostic. Reliance CDMA network offers the best bouquet of services, open-market handset options (over last 2 years) and new technologies and operating systems on the Smartphones.

9. On Impact on Financials due to MNP: Its too early to estimate what the gains or erosions would be. Our focus would be to the eminence that really matters to the customers and not the flurry of activities that may happen in the marketplace.

The current Industry churn is about 3-5% on a month on month basis depending on the operator you are looking at. MNP will enable the churning customers to retain their existing mobile numbers. The churn induced by MNP on a standalone basis may not be as significant considering the experiences in rest of the world.