Sales Drive By Mumbai Cell Operators

Even as cellular operators in the rest of the metropolitan cities have started consolidating their operations _ by 'turning-off' errant subscribers with unpaid bills _ Mumbai cellular operators are back on the acquisition trail and are offering incentives to rope in new subscribers.

Sources said both the Mumbai cellular operators _ BPL Mobile and Hutchison Max Telecom Ltd (HMTL) _ had started acquiring subscribers aggressively.

The trend was started by the BPL company, which had some 117,000 subscribers at the end of June. It is reported to have acquired some 8,000-10,000 in July and the first two weeks of August.

HMTL, the market leader in Mumbai with 126,000 subscribers at end-June has also started acquiring subscribers aggressively, sources said.

The spurt in acquisition of subscribers is likely to pull up the sluggish monthly cellular growth in the country which has been languishing at some 15,000-17,000.

The monthly cellular growth in Mumbai _ as in Delhi, Calcutta and Chennai _ has been slowing down in the past few months after the operators decided to deactivate delinquent subscribers who have been late in paying their bills or have plain defaulted in payments.

Such outstandings are estimated to be over Rs 100 crore in the four cities. Another reason for the deactivation of subscribers is the Rs 5,000 licence fee per subscriber to be levied on the metro companies from this September. Until now, the companies were paying a flat annual fee between Rs 1.5 crore and Rs 12 crore in the first three years of operations.

From the fourth year, however, the companies are to pay Rs 5,000 per subscriber annually, which translates into over Rs 415 a month _ more than one-third the current average bill of a user.

The operations of cellular companies _ particularly in the metros _ have come under pressure with the monthly subscriber growth flattening out over the last few months.

The total number of subscribers in the four cities has fallen 7-8 per cent between April and July.

Data available with the department of telecommunications (DoT) and the operators show that the cellular subscriber-base in the country has grown barely 14,000 users in June from April when it stood at over 913,000. The number is expected to have gone up to some 935,000 by the end of July.

In the four metros _ Mumbai, Delhi, Calcutta and Chennai _ the number of subscribers fell progressively from 558,000 in April this year, to 548,000 in May and 522,000 in June. Delhi operator Airtel dropped the number of its subscribers from 123,000 in April to 105,000 in June, while rival Essar Cellphone scaled it down to 85,000 from over 93,000.