Mobile number portability to spare biggies, hit small telcos: Analysts Read more: Mobile number portability to spare biggies, hit small telcos: Analy

MUMBAI: The much-delayed mobile number portability (MNP), which kicked off on Thursday, is unlikely to have any major impact on large cellular service providers, but smaller ones could feel the pinch from customer migration, market analysts feel.

During the day's session, stocks of the listed telecom service providers had a mixed fortune with Bharti Airtel, Idea and MTNL closing in the red, while Reliance Communications ended higher. Tata Tele (Maharashtra), on the other hand, closed unchanged.

In a recent research report, Goldman Sachs said that it is the postpaid section of the customers and the high-end prepaid users who are more likely to shift to another operator from the incumbent. Goldman Sachs analysts also expect corporate subscribers, rather than shifting to a new operator, will negotiate their tariffs with the incumbents.

"We estimate postpaid contributes about 15%-20% to Bharti/ Idea's cellular revenues and believe 5%-8% of Bharti's earnings may be at risk,'' the report said. "Case studies from other markets show limited impact from MNP in the majority of the cases,'' it added.

MTNL and Loop Telecom appear to be the most vulnerable of the lot since these two have "legacy high-end postpaid subscribers but over a period of time have arguably struggled with network quality/customer service, would likely see high-end subscriber churning out,'' Goldman Sachs analysts said.

Ratings major, ICRA, too believes that mobile operators with better network quality will gain now that the MNP regime has kicked in.

"Operators with superior quality of service would be the clear winners, while those with less than satisfactory service quality would stand to lose the maximum by way of subscriber churn,'' ICRA analysts said in a recent report.

Read more: Mobile number portability to spare biggies, hit small telcos: Analysts - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Mobile-number-portability-to-spare-biggies-hit-small-telcos-Analysts/articleshow/7330113.cms#ixzz1BgP3L1Hm