According to report by Telecommunications Management Group, 154 million
mobile subscribers around the world have kept their mobile telephone number
when changing operators, a concept known as mobile number portability
(MNP). This feature is not automatic and implementation requires regulatory
intervention. By September 2008, MNP was available in 48 countries.
The report, “Mobile Number Portability Around the World,” identifies
the advantages and disadvantages of MNP. A primary advantage is the ability
of consumers to select a new mobile service provider without inconvenience
or disruption to friends, family or business contacts. For businesses, this
is an especially attractive feature, eliminating the expense of updating
stationery, business cards or other collateral that contain a mobile phone
number. The biggest disadvantage of MNP is perceived to be the cost, which
several countries have cited as the reason for not implementing MNP.
The majority of MNP implementations have been in Europe, where the
European Union has mandated the introduction of MNP. Most high-income
nations in other regions have also implemented MNP. Few developing nations
have MNP. China and India, home to the world’s two largest mobile markets,
have yet to introduce MNP. Hong Kong, where statistically, every mobile
subscriber has ported their mobile telephone number at least once, has the
world’s highest MNP implementation.
Top 10 countries by Mobile Number Penetration (Mobile number ports as a percentage of mobile subscribers), January 2008
Hong Kong 115%
Finland 65%
Norway 60%
Korea (Rep) 55%
Denmark 41%
Spain 30%
Australia 28%
Sweden 25%
Ireland 22%
Iceland 18%
Source: Telecommunications Management Group, Inc.
The report features a number of statistics on MNP trends, including the
total number of mobile portings by country. In addition, the report
includes mobile statistics essential for analyzing MNP, including mobile
subscribers, percentage of prepaid subscribers and churn rates for
countries that have implemented MNP. For ordering information, see http://reports.tmgtelecom.com/mnp.