Hutch Essar’s ARPU way below Bharti number

NEW DELHI: Hutch Essar, which will now be known as Vodafone Essar, has again shown a lower average revenue per user (ARPU) than Bharti Airtel Ltd.

According to the key performance indicators unveiled by Hong Kong-based Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd (HTIL), Hutch Essar’s blended ARPU (post and pre-paid taken together) is Rs 390 per subscriber per month as on March 31, 2007.

The Bharti group had recently announced an ARPU of Rs 406.

In the previous quarter too, Bharti’s ARPU was higher at Rs 427, against Hutch Essar’s Rs 414.

Hutch Essar’s ARPU is usually the highest in the industry.

Reliance Communications, which is the second-largest private wireless operator in the country, has shown an ARPU of Rs 377 as of March 31, 2007, up from Rs 328 in the previous quarter.

However, the minutes of usage (MOU) per subscriber per month clocked by Reliance Communications are the highest in the industry at 541 minutes as of March 31, 2007.  This is against 475 minutes of Bharti and 447 minutes of Hutch Essar. Out of Hutch Essar’s wireless subscriber base of 26.4 million, more than 86% are pre-paid users.

In the case of Reliance (both GSM and CDMA), the total wireless user base is 28 million, of which 84.7% are pre-paid subscribers. Coming to the churn rate, Hutch Essar’s is at 4.6% overall.

For post-paid, Hutch Essar’s churn rate is 3.6% and pre-paid 4.8%.

In the last quarter, Reliance Communications had given its overall churn rate at 1.8%, but has not mentioned anything for this quarter.

According to Bharti, its post-paid voluntary churn is 1%, while the company-initiated churn in post-paid is 2.2%. In the case of pre-paid customers, Bharti’s churn rate is 3.6%.