IMPACT OF MNP ON CONSUMER SWITCHING BEHAVIOUR WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS
Indian telecom market is one of the fastest growing markets and is forecasted to reach 9.2 million users by mid of 2012. India has seen rapid increase in the number of players which has caused the tariff rates to hit an all time low and with the introduction of MNP, the mobile users has an option of changing the service provider without changing the number. The availability of Mobile Number Portability to subscriber has intensified the competition among service providers in order to retain the existing customer base and to gain from other operators, which has led to attractive schemes or offers or packages to the end users. This shows satisfaction has become a major influence on switching behavior and only those mobile operators who satisfy the needs of the users at affordable cost can prevail. The study examines the impact of MNP on customer demographics in determining the switching behavior. The data gathered was through a survey and the sample size was 203. The variables considered for the study were customer demographics, satisfaction, tariff, customer care. Independent students t test and chi-square were used to analyze the data to examine the impact of switch propensity for each demographic variable. Research findings suggest that different groups have different switching behavior. Age, gender, marital status and brand have significant dependency on those who switch and there is significant difference on age with regard to VAS, network quality; education and monthly income on low international tariff; marital status on network quality. The study also reveals that call rates play the most important role in switching the service provider followed by network coverage and value added service respectively. It is found that there is a relation between switching the demographic variables. More number of young mobile users prefers mobile number portability. Airtel and Idea Cellular emerged as most preferred mobile service operators in terms of MNP. Both continue to gain customers from other service providers. As per the study BSNL was the biggest loser in terms of MNP. It was also observed that post paid customer prefer MNP over prepaid. Keywords ?? MNP, Prepaid, Postpaid, Switching Behavior, Demographics, VAS, Tariff.