MyAdhan Blog

Link: Du admits 20% of subscribers inactive

More than 20 percent of Du’s mobile subscribers are not active. According to the company, the total number of mobile customers as of March 31, 2008 is around 1.7 m, out of which 354,000 subscribers have not made a call, sent an SMS or MMS during the three months’ period since they got the subscription. According to the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, any mobile customer who has made a call or sent an SMS or MMS, or received a call within the last 90 days is considered an ‘active subscriber’. Du is hoping this act of transparency will help win favour for the brand and prove there are people who really use their Du subscriptions (it means 1.35m subscribers are active). Thanks to giveaway promotions many UAE phone users have signed up for Du account, but continue to use their Etisalat number, keeping the Du number for visitors. Du released the active subscribers’ numbers along with its first quarter results. The company, which is still in red, has reported revenues for the quarter ending March this year of around $20m, an increase of 18 per cent over the previous quarter and 313 percent growth compared with the 2007. The overall results of the company for the quarter was a loss of around $16m compared with a loss of $40m incurred in the fourth quarter last year. Du, which invested around $133m last year, recently signed an agreement to build a direct, high-bandwidth submarine cable system from the United Kingdom to India. The Europe India Gateway cable system, which will cost more than $700m, is targeted to be operational in second quarter of 2010 and will connect 13 countries including Portugal, France, Oman and UAE. Etisalat, Du’s only competitor, claims to have 63m subscribers around the world out of which 6.4m are in the UAE, and announced this year that the number of its active subscribers has grown by 103 percent compared to 2006. Being the largest and oldest telecom operator in the region, the company perhaps, is not pressurised to be as transparent with its details as Du.