Orange franchisee Partner Communications Ltd. (Nasdaq: PTNR; TASE: PTNR) CEO Haim Romano has ordered the transfer of as many employees as possible to customer services in order to respond to demands by thousands of subscribers that the carrier match the all-inclusive plans offered by new carriers HOT Mobile Ltd. and a target=new href=http://www.golantelecom.co.il/gt-site/>Golan Telecom Ltd.. Partner is also expanding its service page on Facebook and improving access on its website to its new plans which is has launched in response to the new carriers.
At their launches last week, Golan Telecom and HOT Telecom offered all-inclusive calls, SMS, and internet access plans at NIS 99 and NIS 89 per month, respectively.
Partner began moving employees to customer services last week, after Romano decided to respond to its competitors by offering two new plans: NIS 125 per month for unlimited calls and SMS, and 500 megabits of internet access; and NIS 135 per month for unlimited calls and SMS, and one gigabits of internet access. Partner has opened on its website new pages where subscribers can review its new plans.
So far, Partner seems to have been hit less hard by the new carriers than Cellcom Israel Ltd. (NYSE:CEL; TASE:CEL) and Pelephone Communications Ltd., and has been able to keep its subscribers. On the other hand, Partner will probably not be able to continue doing so for long, as all HOT Telecommunication Systems Ltd. (TASE: HOT) employees and family members will likely switch to HOT Mobile, which could cost Partner several thousand subscribers.
The mobile carriers' churn rate suggest that the new mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) are failing to recruit many subscribers, and that new recruitment has ground to a halt. Subscriber recruitment by Rami Levy Communications Ltd. has slowed from hundreds a day to a few dozen. The MVNOs are therefore likely to ask their hosting carriers to lower the use rates for their networks.
Partner's share price fell 6.8% by mid-afternoon on the TASE today to NIS 19.85, after rising 4.8% on Nasdaq on Friday to $5.44, giving a market cap of $847 million.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 20, 2012
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