INTRODUCTION

The latest buzzwords in the Indian telecom industry are clearly MNP and 3G. While both technologies have been available in other markets around the globe for a while now, they are now just entering the Indian market and already promise to show spectacular results. This whitepaper covers MNP or Mobile Number Portability and what this means to the operator market in terms of advertising opportunities. While there are other whitepapers covering the technical aspects of MNP, this whitepaper is focused on the advertising aspect that MNP brings into the picture.

What is MNP?
Mobile number portability (MNP) enables mobile telephone users to retain their mobile telephone numbers when changing from one mobile network operator to another.

Life Before MNP

Today mobile consumers find it hard to move from one network operator to another with a better plan, unless they are ready to forego their old mobile number and update all their contacts with the new number. The result is consumers often stick to one operator even if they are dissatisfied with plans or customer service. Now, with the launch of MNP, consumers can easily switch between operators offering different plans while retaining their old number. A recent survey by Aegis Consulting and Research shows that Indians have been waiting for this feature and have much to gain with the launch of MNP.
Uninor Airtel MTNL Reliance CDMA Vodafone BSNL Idea Aircel Tata Docomo Reliance GSM Tata Indicom Loop 19.4 47.0 48.0 50.4 51.3 53.0 54.8 54.8 55.9 62.1 62.8 74.2
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Figures show percentage of subscribers of the operator who said yes

Source: Aegis Consulting & Research

CHURNING DESIRE Indian mobile-telephony customers are a restless lot Will you change your number once portability comes?
2010 InMobi. White Paper - Mobile Number Portability. An Advertisers Guide www.inmobi.com

MOBILE NUMBER An Advertisers Guide PORTABILITY

Competition Will Increase
With the launch of this service, the mobile operator market will get more competitive in terms of plans available for users, coverage and connectivity, and customer service. In a few markets, certain operators have established a quasi-monopoly and have dominated the market. These dominant positions are mainly a function of time in market. In an environment without MNP where consumers

have less desire to switch plans, operators can build a subscriber base over time with little risk to attrition. With the arrival of MNP, competition will increase dramatically and markets historically dominated by a single player will see increased fragmentation and churn rates.

MNP in India
MNP was made available to the Indian market on Jan 20, 2011. A fee of Rs.19 is charged for switching operators, but operators often waive this fee as an introductory offer. Consumers need to stay with the new operator for a minimum of 90 days before being able to shift operators again. MNP initially launched in the state of Haryana in November 2010. Reports show that in the Haryana circle a total of 150,000 customers have ported out i.e. shifted from one operator to another.

Vodafone Airtel
Idea

Aircel
BSNL Loop Tata GSM Reliance GSM Videocon Tata CDMA

Operator
42157 23066 21221 16139 7234 0

2374
1242 1188 1001

Numbers Ported IN Numbers Ported Out

Reliance CDMA MTS 295 97 11368 17229 23686 1590 33626 9 9095 12181 4004 10747 7934 888

Net Gain/loss
30789

5837 -2465 14549 -26392

-9
-6721 -10939 -2816 -9746 -7639 -791

Gain/Loss Ratio
3.7 1.3 1.1 10.2 4.6 3.8 9.8 3.4 10.7 26.9 9.2

Multiple Plans, Not SIM Cards

Another dimension of the Indian market is multiple SIM cards. One is their primary card or number and the other is the expendable SIM card. So far, the expendable cards have been prepaid cards
Source: Teleguru.in 2010 InMobi. White Paper - Mobile Number Portability. An Advertisers Guide www.inmobi.com

MOBILE NUMBER An Advertisers Guide PORTABILITY

Service Area

AP Assam
Bihar

Chennai Delhi Gujarat Haryana

Prepaid

29 19 39 10 33 22 20 HP J&K 33 9
Postpaid

80

67 46 16 81 49 58 49 55
Total

109 86 85 26 114 71 78 82 64
Prepaid

13 8 11 1 14 14 12 9 8
Postpaid

24 17 30 12 32 32 30 24 18
Total

37 25 41 13 46 46 42 33 26 Karnataka Kerala Kolkata 26 36 17 Maharashtra MP& CG 24 28 62 60 64 61

63 88 96 81 85 91 15 11 13 13 18 30 26 24 30 29 45 37 37 43 47 Mumbai North East 39 24 Orissa Punjab 29 18 95 72 67 48 134 96 96 66 16 10 13 18 31 21 30 38 47 31 43 56 Rajasthan 29 52 81 11 26 37 Tamilnadu UP (E) 34 32 UP (W) West Bengal 37 32 62 67 64 56

96 99 101 88 10 12 9 16 30 33 23 35 40 45 32 51

Number Of Plans Across Telcos: 31st March 2010 GSM CDMA

that have been bought or trashed depending on offers available, cheaper voice calls, cheaper data plans etc. With the launch of MNP the need for multiple SIM cards is diminished. The primary SIM card can now address the issues of retaining the number while still getting the best-in-market offers. Since users can change the service provider of their primary number, the need for operators to get even more competitive increases. A report from MediaNama shows that for a user, there will now be a fairly large number of plans to choose from. The number of telecom operators operational in multiple service areas has gone up since this report was issued, so the total number of plans is probably even higher than what you see listed here.
Source: Medianama 2010 InMobi. White Paper - Mobile Number Portability. An Advertisers Guide www.inmobi.com

MOBILE NUMBER An Advertisers Guide PORTABILITY

Operator Mobile Advertising Strategies with MNP
Without MNP, operators were mainly able to target a limited audience who were getting a new number. Migration opportunity was smaller and ROI harder to achieve using any advertising approach including mobile advertising. With the launch of MNP, the entire population of mobile users are now open to every operator; hence demand for better advertising and marketing is a reality under MNP. It is evident that operators with better choices and offers will benefit from this new reality. However; MNP also presents another unique challenge to mobile service operators in India. It presents a first ever opportunity for consumers to churn en masse. It is interesting to see the variety of marketing approaches from operators in response. For example: Idea Cellular Ltd. ran an aggressive television campaign asking people to Get Idea. The concept behind this was to call out the differentiators that Idea was offering. Better network coverage, plans adaptable to consumer usage, echo deletion etc. were widely advertised. Vodafone India took a more inclusive approach by welcoming everybody. With the Everybodys welcome tagline, Vodafone has taken a more confident, leadership approach relying on a friendly, likeable tone to the advertising. Rather than call out the product benefits of using Vodafone, the Vodafone ads use elements that are eminently likable such as the children, the pug, and catchy music. Tata DoCoMo went with an aggressive mobile Twitter campaign and also initiated a hashtag campaign named #switch2TataDoCoMo, which it inserted into all its tweets on

MNP. A typical tweet by the company read, If ur lookin to switch then ensure its to a #3G ready network, who believes in cool offers..aka us ;-) #Switch2TataDoCoMo #MNP. The firm also adopted an informal tone in its replies to individual tweeters, often referring to them as buddy or pal. The MNP wars were not restricted just to Twitter and TV ads. Tata DoCoMo, Idea and Airtel have all bought advertising space on Google that appears on the result pages on searches for either MNP or mobile number portability. Campaigns that promote operators and adoption via MNP live in the mobile realm; hence it is a must for mobile to be an integral marketing channel. Advertising on the mobile provides the highest form of relevance to the user. Second, it also provides the user a real understanding of requirements and tangible, personal understanding of what makes one network more different than another. Overlook mobile advertising and you pass by the most obvious and important channel for MNP messaging. If the concepts above are not compelling enough, another benefit remains. The greatest advantage that mobile offers operators in an MNP world is targeting capabilities on competing operator networks and specific manufacturers and handsets. With absolutely no spillage, advertisers can reach out to the exact audience they want to reach with offers to pull them into their network. This sort of targeting is not provided by any other sort of channel and is ideally suited to the needs of operators in the MNP reality that is India today.
2010 InMobi. White Paper - Mobile Number Portability. An Advertisers Guide www.inmobi.com

MOBILE NUMBER An Advertisers Guide PORTABILITY

Advice on Mobile Advertising
Some of the ways operators can utilize the mobile medium to run their ad campaigns are 1.Target Competitive Network a. Plain Targeting: Push your campaigns to attract customers from other networks to migrate to your network. Create awareness about your attractive tariff plans b. Survey: Understand what it would take to attract a specific category of users. Get to know what they dont like about their network and customize a plan, which migrates them to your network c. Incentive Buying: Push discount coupons, instant gratification, additional memberships and tell them about your loyalty programs for quick registrations / enquiries to migrate to your network. If somebody registers then announce the same through their facebook page by linking online registration forms to social networks d. Handset targeting: Intercept all the 3G enabled phones in other networks and inform them about your offers to increase migration to your own network 2. Leverage your own network a. Refer a friend: Request your own subscribers to refer their friends and give instant gratifi cation like CUG calls among all friends of the user who migrates from another network to your network b. Feedback: Get to know the feedback on your network from your existing users. What they dont like or like about your network. This will help the operator in improving services and get to the facts that can be used for brand communications. 3. Utilize Mobile Effectively a. Calls to Action: Mobile offers a wide range of calls to action such as Click to Call, Click to SMS, Click to Video etc. Spread the mobile campaign across all these actions to engage users in a wider way and hence further grow the interest b. Creative Banners: The creative banners available on mobile are far superior to the ones available on traditional media. Your campaign banners can be of different sizes to best suit the phone it is displayed on, can have animations on it, can be a full screen ad before an application loads etc. Ensure that you work all these options into your ad

campaigns
2010 InMobi. White Paper - Mobile Number Portability. An Advertisers Guide www.inmobi.com

MOBILE NUMBER An Advertisers Guide PORTABILITY

The Worlds Largest Independent Mobile Advertising Network
InMobi is the worlds largest independent mobile advertising network. With six offices on four continents InMobi provides advertisers, publishers and developers with a uniquely global solution for advertising. The network is growing fast and it now delivers the unprecedented ability to reach 194 million consumers, in over 115 countries, through more than 30 billion mobile ad impressions monthly. InMobi recently was selected as the 2010 AlwaysOn Global 250 Company to Watch in Silicon Valley. InMobi is venture-backed with marquee investors including: Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers and Sherpalo Ventures. The company has offices in London, San Francisco, Bangalore, Tokyo, Johannesburg and Singapore. To learn more, please visit www.InMobi.com, follow us on Twitter @InMobi, or