US Yankee-COAI clash over data

The U S-based Yankee Group has taken on GSM cellular operators for rubbishing its claim that subscriber numbers in the country are overstated by operators.

Yankee Group's Senior Analyst on telecom Farid Yunus pointed out that even if the figures given by Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which has argued that handset sales matched net additions of subscribers in 2005, were taken into consideration, the association missed out the fact that as much as 20 per cent of users replace their phones every year.

In that case, the number of net additions declared by operators would be much higher than the number of phones bought by new users "" clear evidence of overstating user numbers.

Speaking to Business Standard from Kuala Lumpur, Yunus said: "The GSM operators are just trying to defend their position as our assessment of overstatement of numbers is detrimental to their need of spectrum based on subscriber base".

The Cellular Operators Association of India claimed that handset sales in 2005 (32.5 million), roughly matched total net additions (31.8 million).

The Yankee report, which was presented recently with the support of the Confederation of Indian Industry, stated that in the fourth quarter of 2005, around 10 million mobile sets were sold in India "" well below the 12 million net addition that operators collectively reported.

It suggested that GSM operators in particular needed to rationalise their subscriber base by eliminating about 20 per cent of it, which was covered by non-existent users. COAI, however, has rubbished the claims saying there was no overstating of subscriber numbers.

Yunus said, "We agree these (COAI) figures are correct, but their logic would imply that not a single current user in India bought a new replacement phone in 2005; basically all new handsets were purchased by first time users."

He added that roughly 20 per cent subscribers replace their phones in any given year, so if net additions and handset sales were equal, it simply meant that 20 per cent of new users were signing up without buying a handset.