Lifetime scheme a winner: Trai

Mobile operators may have hit the jack pot with the lifetime validity plans they launched about a year ago.

According to a Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) study, between January to June 2006, mobile operators added 16 million subscribers with the help of this scheme which constituted for almost 50 per cent of the incremental subscribers in that period.

And contrary to expectation of a low average revenue per user (ARPU) figure, the study shows that the operators enjoyed a healthy ARPU of Rs 218 from the customers subscribing to the scheme. The industry ARPU of pre-paid customers is Rs 261.

"Lifetime schemes acquired 16.10 million subscribers from January to June 2006, 51 per cent of which were newly acquired and the rest were existing subscribers who migrated to these schemes," Trai said.

During January to June 2006, the telecom industry added 30 million mobile subscribers.

In fact, the revenue per minute (RPM) for the lifetime scheme users at Rs 0.80 is higher than the industry's full mobility service whose RPM is Rs 0.77, the study added.

On an average, a lifetime subscriber makes 57 minutes of outgoing calls and receives about 214 minutes of incoming calls a month. On an average, 72 per cent of the lifetime users recharge every month.

"The scheme has been one of the driving forces responsible for the growth of the mobile subscribers in the country," Trai said.

The regulator conducted the study after some stakeholders expressed apprehensions about the validity of the scheme since the plans contained features which limited users to receive incoming calls only up to six months.