FACTORS BEHIND CONSUMER SWITCHING MOBILINK

Abstract

Cellular Industry of Pakistan has grown many folds in recent years. Cellular industry of Pakistan has become one of the fastest growing market and is forecasted to reach 8680.47 million users by 2013.Many new entrants have also joined the market to reap the the potentials of this growing industry, and has caused the tariff rates to hit an all time low. this situation has created a hyper competition among other cellular service providers in Pakistan. Companies are working hard to introduce more innovative and eye-catching products to attract the customers. The companies with large customer base are striving to reduce their switching costs. The objective of this study is to find the factors that influence the customers in switching from mobilink to other service providers and to delve into finding out the likeliness of switching from mobilink to other service providers. Mobilink is Pakistan’s first and the largest cellular industry with a 30% market share. From the last 5 years, mobilink is facing loss both financially and customer loss wise, out of 20 million subscriber 750000have ported their numbers to other cellular provider service and the rest 125000 have been blocked by PTA after identifying them as illegal Sims. Annually around 20K customers leave mobilink and switch to other network because of its poor service, low quality, high rates, and unfriendliness service. In this research, both quantitative and qualitative data will be included and it will be a descriptive research that is being conducted to obtain the information related to the current status in order to describe what exists with respect to the variables. Despite of the data description being factual and systematic, it still cannot, describe the underlying reasons because of which exploratory research will be used since it is the best option for research design, data collection method and selection of subjects.