Israel Sees Dramatic Rise in Mobile Number Portability Requests

Published on: 19th Feb 2013

­Israel's Ministry of Communications has reported that the "dramatic rise" in switching mobile customers continued through the 4th quarter of 2012.

The Ministry says that last year, the Israeli mobile market really opened for competition with the entry of new operators and the cancellation of exit fines and switching fines.

The Ministry of Communications anticipates that the shortening of the switching procedure from 3.5 hours to 30 minutes, which will be enforced in June 2013, will further boost mobile number portability rates..

In Q4 of 2012, 490,651 mobile customers switched operators. This is quite similar to the figure of Q3 - 482,897. Such figures are over 50% higher than the average number of roughly 200,000 switching customers per quarter until mid-2012.

The main reason for this sharp rise is the prevalent special offers from mobile operators during the latter two quarters of the year, mainly "all included" plans for monthly prices around as low as 50 NIS.

Throughout 2012 overall, 1,411,611 mobile subscribers switched, which amounts to 52% of the 2,622,398 subscribers who have switched operators in the six-year period since number portability was implemented in December 2007 until 31 December 2012.

In the fixed telecom sector, 92,213 subscribers switched from one operator to another in Q4 2012 - a figure that approximates that of the previous quarter. From beginning to end 2012, overall 351,231 subscribers switched; 1,317,711 subscribers switched between 2007-2012.

 

Tags: [mnp]  [mobile number portability]  [Israel]