Satisfying SAARC

The Voice&Data Mobile User Satisfaction Survey is an annual study to trace
customers' satisfaction. Considering, the SAARC region has become a visible
contributor to the mobile success story, an attempt was made to record the user
satisfaction on five broad areas-presales/sales, network availability, VAS,
customer care, and billing in the SAARC coutries

India

Basking in the glory of more than 300 mn subscribers, the country has become
a fertile ground for service providers. But numbers alone can not determine
growth. Quality is a key determinant and can not be overlooked. A number of
factors including call setup success rate, blocked call rate, call drop rate and
service coverage depend on the quality and the kind of telecom infrastructure
deployed by service providers. Trai issued the QoS regulation for wireless
mobile services way back in July 2000, which defined the QoS parameters, and
their benchmark levels. Primary data for Trai's QoS reports are provided by the
operators themselves and audited by an independent agency using a smaller sample
and audit is done by the regulator.

The survey shows that Virgin Mobile has scored the highest on the
satisfaction levels.

This year five operators have crossed the Trai benchmark, while last year
only three could manage to meet the regulatory authority's criterion of
satisfaction. On the overall satisfaction parameters, Virgin Mobile scored
95.09%, about 5% above the Trai benchmark of 90%, whereas the last year's top
scorer Aircel slipped from 92.23% to 85.44% this year. BSNL and Vodafone rubbed
shoulders for the second spot with scores of 91.96% and 91.97%, respectively.
BPL and incumbent operator MTNL were among the three operators who met the
satisfaction standards set by the regulator in 2007; this year they toppled
below the 90% mark. BPL and MTNL measured 87.10% and 86.75% respectively.

Overall performance by the operators this year is better as five operators
crossed the Trai benchmark. Operators including, BSNL, Vodafone, Reliance
Communications, Tata Indicom and Virgin Mobile have touched the
satisfaction levels, while rest like Bharti Airtel, Idea cellular, BPL and
Aircel were found to be grappling to touch the magical figure.

WEIGHTAGES: Pre Sales/Sales:, Network:, Value Added Services:, Customer Care:, Billing This year five operators are above the Trai benchmark (which is around 90%) as against only three in 2007, but the overall topper is Virgin Mobile

Analysis of the individual yardsticks for overall consumer satisfaction shows
Virgin Mobile is the winner in the areas of presale and sales with impressive
99.6% users saying they were satisfied with the services. MTNL was a close
contender in this area with 99.3% users happy with its presales and sales
services. Most importantly, in case of network services, BPL booked its top seat
as 98.2% of its users voted in its favor. A segment that gives BSNL an edge over
its rivals in the market is VAS. It got 95.9% followed by Virgin Mobile 94.7%.
In the customer care Virgin is best scoring 88.9%, followed by Aircel with
87.9%. Virgin Mobile is champion at billing integrity with 95.3% score followed
by Vodafone at 93.7%.

Virgin has the largest number of satisfied customers in the area of Sales/Pre-sales followed closely by MTNL, leaving behind bigwigs like Airtel & Vodafone Network performance is most satisfactory for Vodafone In the Value Added Services segment Vodafone topped the charts Reliance emerged as the topper in both Customer Care and Billing Integrity

Metro Movers

The services on offer in the metro was measured to be satisfying to a large
extent. In these areas all the operators barring Aircel crossed the benchmark
defined by the Trai. All the operators except Aircel have shown improvement in
their performance compared to past years'. Idea Cellular has improved its
services and advanced from 81.0% to 90.3%. Tata Indicom is ranked first in the
metro circles, then comes BPL, Vodafone and BSNL which have very close scores.

Household income is in '000s and is calculated in the currency used in each country

However, service providers did not fare as well as they did in the metros.
BSNL took the overall lead in the A circle. The services in these circles showed
visible improvement. Spice and Tata Indicom revved up their services
drastically. Though, both Spice and Tata Indicom slumped on satisfactions level
in A circle in 2007, but in 2008 both showed improvement. Similarly, in B and C
circles Tata Indicom topped the services chart at 96.5%. Bharti Airtel was
second scoring 93.1%. In these circles all operators leaving Aircel and Idea
Cellular reached the Trai benchmark. Tata Indicom made a move upward from 81.7%
to 96.5%. Spice and Vodafone were close competitors at 91.8% and 91.2%,
respectively.

Tata (Indicom) is the clear leader followed by BPL

In Sight, in Mind

For the third consecutive year Bharti Airtel is the most remembered brand.
It became the top of the mind brand and also the brand with top the mind
advertiser. Vodafone is second in the list of most recalled brands. Its
advertisements are popular with the consumers.

Keeping in line with its past year's trend of offering the most
cost-effective tariff plans, Bharti Airtel is followed by BSNL and Vodafone.

Even as India continues to add about 8 mn mobile subscribers every month, all
the operators have failed to offer satisfactory customer care services. Though
Virgin scored the maxium on the overall satisfaction for customer services. The
waiting time to speak to the customer care representative is minimum in case of
Bharti Airtel is 4.8 minutes. Idea and Spice have a waiting time 5 minutes. BPL
has a waiting time of 17.3 minutes, which was much lesser in 2007 at 5.8
minutes. Accessibility of the customer care representative reflects the
efficiency of services offered by the operators.

Feature Fit

SMS continues to be the top-most feature utilized with 94.8% of respondents
rating it as the most utilized feature, unlike 2007 when it was popular with
91.6% users. STD and ISD calling has seen a downfall from 76.1% to 70%, so has
call waiting feature. It has stepped down from 68.7% in 2007 to 58.1% this year.
Ring tones and caller tune downloads have been steadily picking up with the
users. More than 55% of users included this feature among the top ones.

Users are more receptive for more personalized activities like mobile
banking, ticket bookings and the like. MMS has lost its charm now and has taken
a dip from 29.5% to 20% this year.

Talking 3G

Feature rich handsets have always fascinated the consumer market in India,
3G is also finally catching up in India. The recent launch of some such handsets
could be one reason to have generated more curosity and awareness even as
individual perceptions differ. While most view 3G enabled handsets as mobile
Internet devices, many perceive it to be a live wireless TV system. More than
half of the repondents look at 3G enabled cellphones as a smart all purpose
remote control device household devices. A large chunk feels they are personal
organizers or digital diaries.

The year 2009 is likely to see emergence of new QoS measures in the wake of
Trai floating a consultation paper to bring stringent quality benchmarks.
Therefore, it is time for operators to gear up for customer focus.

Bangladesh

Nurturing a dream of attaining 80% penetration by 2012, Bangladesh is set to
become one of the hot beds of telecommunications. The country is now being
identified as a key market for investments. At present six mobile operators are
offering mobile telephony services in the country. The total number of mobile
users is over 45.4 mn. Sheba Telecom is the most satisfying service provider
with 86.4% satisfied subscribers. Grameenphone is the second best followed by
TMIB (Aktel) and Bangladesh Pacific Telecom's Citycell. Gold Teletalk ranked
last. While the telecommunications industry continues to be competitive, quality
of services is a differentiating factor. Sheba Telecom has the largest number of
satisfied customers in the area of sales and presales services with 95.3% users
being satisfied wih its services. In Bangladesh, network quality is best for
TMIB with 86.7% subscribers being satisfied with the network; second in the list
is Grameenphone. Sheba Telecom has the strongest customer care whereas both the
Gold Teletalk and Sheba Telecom were top rankers in billing integrity.

Grameenphone is the top of mind brand, Sheba Telecom has the best brand
recall. Almost 42% of its subscribers believe Sheba Telecom offers the most
cost-effective tariff plans. Average waiting time to speak to a customer care
representative is longest for Gold Teletalk and minimum for Sheba Telecom.

A good number (75.8%) of respondents had been using the same connection for
more than three years.

SMS is the most commonly used application. Almost 80% users are aware of 3G.

Bhutan

Telecommunications in Bhutan had long been monopolized by the state-run
Bhutan Telecom. Only this year a new operator Tashi InfoComm made way into the
business and gave the incumbent player some competition. Owned by the biggest
and oldest business house Tashi Group of Companies, Tashi InfoComm has launched
its product under Tashicell, licensed to provide ISP services in the country as
well.

The overall satisfaction score of Bhutan Telecom was 90% On the pre-sales and
sales parameter, Bhutan Telecom scored 93.4%. By Indian standards, the network
quality was not bad at 91.9%. The operator's performance on VAS services is
quite satisfactory with 93.1% points for satisfaction of the services. However,
the service provider will have to gear up its assistance and billing integrity
services. The average waiting time for customer care representative to is 3.3
minutes. The users have given 87.6% and 87.1%, for customer care and billing
integrity, respectively.

Since Bhutan Telecom was the only service provider until recently, 62% of the
respondents had been using the connection for over three years. Almost 21% of
the people, who cast their vote, were 2-3 years old users. Only a small number
1.3% were new subscribers, who had opted for the connection less than 3 months
back.

In Bhutan as well, SMS is the most popular service, 92.6% of the respondents
voted it as the most popular service feature. While 65.1% ranked ring
tone/caller tune download as the most popular service. Other features like
mobile banking, ticket bookings, which are quite frequently used in India are
fast catching on here as well.

Though Bhutan is relatively younger in the telecom race, it boasts of about
3,000 3G subscribers. The government-run operator launched 3G technology only a
few months back. The present number of subscribers is a remarkable progress by
operators as compared to the service providers in the region. India, which is
one of the front runners in the mobile marathon, is yet to launch 3G services
commercially. The country has a considerable subscriber base for 3G services,
hence there also exists awareness on the technology.

A large number of almost 82% respondents perceive 3G handsets as mobile
Internet access devices, 70 -72% look at 3G-enabled cellphones as personal
organizers and digital diaries.

Most of the subscribers to 3G services intend to use the services for
mobile-based e-mail, on-demand TV, radio, movies, downloading real time
information like news and electronic remote keys for security of cars, and
homes.

Maldives

With a subscriber base of mobile users more than its population, Maldives
has attained 150% tele-density, the highest in the SAARC region. The telecom
user base in Maldives is broadly divided into two major operators. Dhiraagu is a
joint venture company with 55% ownership by the Government and the rest by
Cables and Wireless of the United Kingdom. The other player Wataniya is a
subsidiary of a Kuwait-based company.

The V&D survey finds that there is a neck-to-neck competition between both
players in the country. The users have given very close scores to both of them
on satisfaction levels. While Dhiraagu scored 86.9%, Wataniya Telecom was only
slightly behind it at 84%. Though on the overall satisfaction parameters,
Dhiraagu was in lead, but on the pre-sales and sales factors Wataniya Telecom
was ahead at 95.3% against Dhiraagu's 94.1%. Even though the tele-density is
high the users' experience shows that both the operators have to work
extensively on their network quality, VAS, customer care and billing integrity
services. By Indian standards, network quality is not very high. Dhiraagu
couldn't touch 90% satisfaction. Customer care which is a basic parameter of
user satisfaction is also quite low, Wataniya scored only 79.2% and Dhiraagu
performed only little better at 81.7%. Billing integrity score for both
operators is almost the same, not just this, but the average waiting time for
customer care representative is quite long for both operators. For Dhiraagu the
average waiting time is 7.5 minutes, and 5.4 minutes for Wataniya Telecom.

The incumbent player Dhiraagu has emerged as the top of the mind brand; it is
also the brand with top of the mind advertising.

Like all the other SAARC countries, in Maldives too the SMS is the most
popular mobile feature with 96.9% users voting for it. Call waiting and MMS are
some of the other frequently used service feature.

Both operators have a strong presence and offer 3G services. It is noteworthy
that Wataniya Telecom that had launched 3G services with a lucrative offer of
providing free video calls inaugurated its 3.5G services early this year. The
users here have a fair knowledge of 3G services. Almost 78% mobile subscribers
said they were aware of 3G services.

Nepal

The Himalayan kingdom has clocked 2.5 mn mobile subscribers and the number
is now increasing at a steady pace. Last year, the government issued licences to
two more telecom operators, one to offer rural telephony and the other for basic
telephone services.

The mobile telecommunications traffic is largely divided between two
operators, the government-owned Nepal Doorsanchar Company (NDCL) and Spice
Nepal. Even though the incumbent service provider has been operational for more
than two decades, it has failed to meet the expectations of subscribers. On the
overall satisfaction score card, Nepal Doorsanchar has earned 64.2% which is a
very low score as compared to the other countries in the region.

The second largest operator in the country, Spice Nepal has performed much
better with 70% of its subscribers saying they were satisfied with service of
the operator.

Geographically, most part of the country is a hilly terrain, hence
development of infastructure in this region has been one big challenge for both
the government and the operator. Network quality in the country is quite poor.
Network of the private operator is far better than the incumbent operator which
has a pathetic score on network quality. The presales and sales performance of
the two operators is a consolation, but customer care and billing integrity is
again a headache for the user. The average waiting time to speak to a customer
care representative in case of Spice Nepal is about 5 minutes, but NDCL
subcriber has to queue up for a long 7.8 minutes to be connected to a customer
care representative.

While operators in most of the countries of SAARC countries are reaping best
benefits from their VAS, the operators in Nepal have to gear up in the area.
Spice Nepal, which has recently struck a deal with Telisonera AB, a leading
Noradic telecom giant operating in Europe and Asia, has some interesting offers,
but a lot more innovation is required to impress its subscriber services.

The private operator has been posing a challenge for NDCL in all the areas.
The survey shows that Spice Nepal has left NDCL far behind when it comes to
creating brand recall and providing cost-effective services. The users ranked
Spice Nepal in a higher position in these areas.

With 94.2% mobile users rating SMS as the top application feature the service
has emerged as the most accessed feature. STD/ISD, call forward/diverts,
ringtones caller tunes are some other top features.

In spite of the 3G services already been launched in the country, there is
not much awareness about the technology amongst mobile users. Only 66.9% users
say they are aware of the 3G services.

Pakistan

With about 90 mn mobile subscribers, teledensity in the country is about
60%, much higher than its competing SAARC neighbours, including India. The
mobile communication traffic is divided among six operators.

Warid Telecom with over 16.1 mn subscribers is the overall topper in mobile
satisfaction. Second most satisfying service provider was Ufone, closely
followed by Mobilink that boasts of the highest subscriber base in the country.
The difference in the performance of the top scorers and the bottom liners is
not much. While the overall winner Warid Telecom scored 88%, the lowest score of
82.8% was shared by Instaphone and Paktel.

Warid Telecom on the occasion of its third anniversary recently announced
innovative schemes like unlimited MMS for three days, free-on-net calls for the
first three minutes, free international SMSs, ringtones has won hearts of its
users and become the top service provider in terms of value added services. In a
bid to impress its prepaid users, Mobilink had also introduced a range of SMS
packages and scored good points on VAS. Most operators in Pakistan are betting
high on VAS. The scores of Telenor and Ufone were as competitive as the winner.

Only Warid Telecom scored above 90% for its network quality. Wateen Telecom,
was at the bottom at 78.7%. All operators have a strong hold on their pre-sales
and sales services. Over three lakh subscribers-strong Instaphone has the
largest number of customers in this area. Warid Telecom is strongest at customer
care, however Instaphone has emerged as the topper in billing integrity.
Mobilink's advertisement has clearly translated into brand recall, which others
could not do. Mobilink has been voted as the top of the mind brand, but the top
of the mind advertising was Pakistan's incumbent operator, Pakistan
Telecommunication Company owned Ufone. Most of the users had subscribed to the
services more than three years back.

Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan telelcommunications market is strong and is known for its ICT
prowess. The telecommunications sector in Sri Lanka had long been a state-owned
entity, but after reforms in the country's telecommunications in 1991, the
market got liberalized. An open-market-oriented environment is promoted to allow
private sector companies to have maximum flexibility to develop the sector in
response to consumer demand and public needs. With mobile subscription a little
over 10 mn at present, the island country is aiming for quality of service,
affordable and effective choice of communications for all individuals.

To achieve this vision, a ten-year plan was announced in 2006.

Sri Lanka has a very good teledensity in the SAARC region, but the tariff in
the local market still remain high. Mobile consumer is still charged for
incoming and there are no performance indicators and there is no mechanism to
keep an eye on quality.

At present four main players share the burden of mobile telecommunictaions
traffic in the country. Of these Lanka Cellular is the overall topper in the
mobile services satisfaction. The network quality is good in Sri Lanka, where
there is a thrust on quality of services. There is tough competetition among the
operators. Mobitel has the most satisfactory network performance as 91% of its
users say that they were satisfied by the network quality. However, Lanka
Cellular has the largest number of satisfied subscribers in the area of presales
and sales. Value added services offered by the Dialog are most satisfying.
Celtel has the strongest customer care services, however Lanka Cellular has
stood out to be the topper in the billing integrity segment.

Sri Lanka realizes that tariff regulation is an essential element in the
telecommunications sector. Mobitel is the operator that has been judged to be
providing the most cost-effective tariff plans in the country. Though Lanka
Cellular is best at billing services it has the least cost-effective plans.
Dialog's advertising has helped the brand to become the top of the mind brand,
it also has the top of the mind advertising. SMS is the most popular application
feature used by the users in Sri Lanka. Since Sri Lanka has been a pioneer in
the region to launch 3G and 3.5G services, the awareness about the third
generation technology is fairly high, 76.8% of respondents are aware of the
technology.

Heena Jhingan

heenaj@cybermedia.co.in