Hot Mobile struggles to retain subscribers

Hot Mobile
Hot Mobile

Hot gained most new subscribers in September, but its high churn rate left Golan Telecom with far more net new subscribers.

Hot Mobile Ltd. attracted more subscribers in September than Golan Telecom Ltd., however, the vast number of subscribers who left Hot meant Golan had four times more net new subscribers.

Last month, as in most recent months, Golan Telecom continued to be at the forefront of the competition in the mobile market. The deal launched a few weeks ago, which gives users unlimited talk time from overseas destinations for NIS 99 per month was not sufficient to make Golan surpass Hot Mobile in the number of new subscribers, as Hot Mobile attracted 2,000 subscribers more than Golan. But it is safe to assume that it did help Golan to preserve existing customers, and to reduce churn rates. It should be noted that Hot Mobile has a much greater churn rate than Golan - last month, as well as in previous months. Hot Mobile’s churn rate includes all the company’s subscribers, including MIRS subscribers, but since MIRS is mostly dedicated work devices, we can assume that most of the loss was from Hot Mobile.

Among the veteran companies, it appears that Pelephone Communications Ltd. is succeeding in reducing its churn rate, primarily through aggressive sales, such that it is succeeding in compensating for its churn rate and has reduced it to 1,800, while Cellcom Israel Ltd. (NYSE:CEL; TASE:CEL) and Partner Communications Ltd. (Nasdaq: PTNR; TASE: PTNR) have much higher net churn rates.

Partner recorded the greatest churn rate in September, losing 8,000 customers, while Cellcom lost 7,000. Partner also had fewer new subscribers in September than its two competitors. According to Partner, the figure includes “prepaid” subscribers, who did not actually leave the company.

Among the virtual operators (MVNOs), no significant change was recorded last month. It appears that their influence on the market is dwindling, and they are no longer able put pressure on the new or veteran operators.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 1, 2014

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2014

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