Vodafone sees 20% jump in post-paid subscriptions

Vodafone India, the country’s second largest telecom service provider, saw a 20 per cent rise in the number of post-paid subscribers this financial year, higher than its competitors.

The company now has around 10 million post-paid subscribers – around 7 per cent of its total subscriber base of 160 million. In comparison, Bharti Airtel, India’s largest telecom service provider, has 9.5 million post-paid users, around 5 per cent of its total 190 million subscribers.

“The Indian telecom industry is maturing and customers are migrating to post-paid services in large numbers,” Suresh Kumar, Vodafone’s Operations Director for South India, told

Business Line . The rise in the number of Vodafone’s post-paid users has been attributed to a couple of factors. The subscriber activation time for pre-paid connections has gone up in the last few years as the verification process has become stringent, say Vodafone officials. Earlier, pre-paid accounts could be activated within a few hours, but that is not the case now, added Kumar.

Activation time Since the activation time for both connections is almost same now, subscribers are gravitating towards post-paid accounts, which come with tailor-made data and voice plans.

Industry watchers cite another reason as well. “In pre-paid, mostly, there is no control over the amount of data used, which in turn eats into your pre-paid balance,” said Kumar. In December last year, Vodafone launched five post-paid plans for the Karnataka circle with the monthly charges ranging from ₹199 to ₹ 399, thereby, competing with Airtel’s similar offerings. This trend, however, is contrary to the national data. Of the 870 million cellphone users in India, more than 90 per cent use pre-paid connections. A 2011 survey by market researcher Nielsen had said 97 per cent of the Indian youth use pre-paid mobile connections.

“Ultimately, in smaller towns, voice still is a huge driver and it will take some time for data to kick in,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, an analyst at Greyhound Research, a telecom research and advisory firm. Top telecom service providers are pushing to maintain their average revenue per user (ARPU), which for both voice and data averages around ₹176 now. This is the highest ARPU in the last few years, according to industry body Cellular Operators Association of India.