MNP in Saudi Arabia

By Ahmad Al-Assad, Maktoob Research

My wife once told in one of our shopping If we bought this couch I would never ask for anything . The couch was ugly and expensive, but I took my s words literally and was tempted by her promise: not asking for anything else! Well, I should have done more analysis into it. I found out later that my wife meant that she would never ask for anything unless she liked something else!

One of the most important questions in competitive mobile markets if you can keep your mobile number when changing between mobile operators, would you be willing to change. In most surveys, a two-digit percentage of respondents always say yes.

As a result of this incredible potential and competition booster, a technology called: Mobile Number Portability (MNP) came up. MNP enables mobile users to keep their mobile numbers when changing from one mobile network operator to another.

Telecom professionals thought that introducing such technology would change the market shares of operators in any Arab country. In mid 2006, Saudi Arabia was the first Arab country to introduce MNP, followed shortly by Oman. UAE, Jordan and other Arab countries are close to doing the same.

So, did MNP change the market shares in the Saudi Arabian mobile marker? No, it t! After six months of launching MNP to the public for free, less than 15,000 mobile users used it (out of around 20 million mobile lines in Saudi Arabia!). So what were the reasons behind the poor adoption MNP by subscribers? And does this mean that MNP was a failure in Saudi Arabia?

On the contrary, MNP was a success in Saudi Arabia, as it achieved its main objectives: Boost competition between mobile players and enhance quality of services provided in the market. As a reaction for introducing MNP, the Saudi Mobile operators were alarmed. The mobile operators have launched extensive campaigns promoting new services, new offers, reduced rates, as well as enhancing their network quality and coverage. Hence, the reasons behind willingness to change operators vanished. Another minor reason for poor embracement of MNP was the sluggishness of mobile users of going through the process of MNP which takes up to 5 days in some cases.

MNP can be considered a preemptive procedure for fighting monopolistic competition in mobile markets. The telecommunications s main goal of introducing such service is to push operators (and mainly the dominant ones) to compete on the bases of better services, rates and quality, thus boost competition in a healthy way. The regulator t want any operator to depend on the fact that subscribers would not change their operator just because their mobile number is very precious to them.

To summarize: If MNP was introduced in a certain market, mobile operators should either truly satisfy their needs, or risk loosing them.

Bijdragend bedrijf:
Maktoob research. Dubai, UAE. www.maktoob-research.com/
Contact: Ahmad Al-Assad, Regional Research Manager. [email protected].
Tel: +971 4 360 279