Laws have slowed MNP, subscriber additions: Sunil Sood, Vodafone

Grand plans to acquire subscribers of telecom operators that are winding up operations may come to naught as regulations make the process complex, says Sunil Sood, Chief Operating Officer, Vodafone India. In an interaction with ET, Sood says the company will continue to focus on lower penetrated but highly populated areas before it racks its brains on deeper penetration into rural India. Edited excerpts.


How is Vodafone gearing to acquire subscribers from exiting mobile operators like MTS, Videocon and Telenor?

There are three types of subscribers: One, those who are exploiting these companies for cheap rates and offers, but had another primary SIM. They will go back to the primary SIM. Two, those who will throw away that SIM and come back to the market like new subscribers



Here, we are as competitive as others, but it is a dog-eatdog market. You can make an offering but competition will quickly catch up. Three, those who will look for MNP. We have a very strong MNP strategy.

However, with the new rules, you can no more just buy SIM and walk out talking from the shop. It takes days to activate a SIM. We were expecting a surge in MNP cases in November, but it was 50% of the previous month. MNP additions halved because the law changed.

Now, the guy has to call on his own to be verified. How does he understand that? Half of them are uneducated. You have to keep it simple in this country.

Is there a pull back from rural expansion?

In a lot of states, like Madhya Pradesh and Bihar, we have large investment still rolling out. But there are matured states where we have already hit 90% penetration. So, we don’t need to be that aggressive.

The marginal population in these states gets far more scattered.

That said, you can’t generalize. India is too diverse to make a sweeping statement. We a lot more to do in states like Bihar that has poor telecom connectivity. There are some states with over 100% penetration, and there are those with 50%. How can you say that the state with 50% doesn’t need telecom? There are various models available. People have not put in their minds to it. Things will get viable (for deeper rural penetration).

But if I have a market that is 70% penetrated, then why should I put my mind to the last person left in the state.

Everybody works with limited budgets. If you have spent heavily on a 3G licence, then there would be lesser expenditure on other things.

So how do you sell services to optimise usage in fringe India?

When we launched 3G, everyone started talking about data. The masses who had never worked on a computer started exploring data.