HONG KONG-Mobile number portability (MNP) has been in effect in Hong Kong since 1 March, but there is no sign yet of a switching spree among cellular customers in the territory.
Offers of free handsets, free airtime, cash rewards and free services for a couple of months have failed to push the number of requests for swapping networks beyond the Office of Telecommunications Authority (OFTA) imposed daily quota of 5,000.
Hong Kong’s Information Technology and Broadcasting Bureau reported on 7 April there were a total of 88,116 cellphone customers that successfully switched to their chosen networks in March, accounting for 91.2 percent of all applications.
Among the unsuccessful cases, 60 percent were due to incomplete or inaccurate information provided by consumers and the rest due to operators’ inability to handle porting requests on time.
Problems
MNP has not been a hassle-free and smooth process for either cellphone customers or operators since its inception in Hong Kong.
On the second day of MNP implementation, more than one-third of customers (680 out of 1,950) applying to swap networks were still with the old operators.
Incomplete application forms, inaccurate information given by customers, phone outlets’ failure to submit papers for verification purposes, blurred fax copies of users’ identity documents, missing faxes, computer errors and customers’ termination of service contracts before filing MNP applications were blamed for the switch mix-ups.
OFTA Senior Assistant Director Man-ho Au admitted the number of failed applications is a bit higher than expected, but denied rejection is due to any anti-competitive reasons.
The six operators were summoned by OFTA to discuss the situation and were told a blurred fax is no reason to reject an application.
There was improvement shown one week after the MNP implementation, with 80 percent of the transfers successful.
OFTA Pubic Affairs Officer Kay Yau said the failure rate is still high, accusing customer service staff of missing daily deadlines for submitting papers to customers’ old networks for verification. The forms have to be faxed by 4 p.m. the day before the transfer is made.
Incentives to switch
To entice customers from rival networks and to keep churn as low as possible, all operators have offered free handsets, for which users pay up-front and are rebated monthly for a maximum of two years, in addition to a wide range of discounts and rewards.
GSM 1800 operator Sunday has for the first time offered subscribers nine different models of handsets for free, but refuses to chop its tariff.
Sunday spokesman Mark Chan said its basic tariff plan of HK$88 (US$11.35) for 100 minutes is too low for making any profit.
Most of the revenue comes from value-added services, Chan said. “Average monthly spending, including value-added services, amounts to HK$300 (US$38.70). We expect to break even in the third or fourth quarter of the year.”
Chan declined to disclose its churn rate or Sunday’s customer base after MNP implementation, saying the company is doing well and expects a subscriber count of 400,000 by year-end.
Hutchison, running a GSM 900 dual-band network and a CDMA network, said its subscriber count has broken the one-million mark in its annual results for the year ended 31 December, claiming a market share of 34 percent.
The company launched the aggressive Complete Value Guarantee program under which dual-band users can choose among the various tariff plans offered by any of the mobile networks in Hong Kong. In addition, new subscribers get a 50-percent discount on their tariff for the first, third and fifth months.
Hongkong Telecom’s Lambert Chan, mass-market managing director, said customer growth from MNP is less than expected. “Only 20 percent of our new customers have phone numbers from competitors,” Chan noted.
Most of the new customers sign up for the company’s cheaper TDMA service and One2Free brand-dual-band service targeting young people-rather than the high-end dual-band service 1010.
Hongkong Telecom offers 1010 customers switching from rival networks 50 minutes of free airtime and HK$60 (US$7.74) reduction in tariffs for 10 months. All existing customers and new ones registering with Telecom before the end of March are able to make free calls Monday through Friday from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. until the end of May.
“Telecom’s churn has been up from over two percent to less than four percent, lower than the overall market rate of seven percent,” said Chan.
