The Analyst's Path

Glossary

Subscriber churn

M5.06

Also called monthly churn, telecom churn.

The proportion of subscribers leaving each month. A 2.4% monthly rate implies an average subscriber life of about 42 months.

For a business with high fixed network costs, churn is expensive twice: the revenue stops and the acquisition cost has to be paid again to replace it.

Prepaid churn is structurally higher than postpaid, so the reported blended figure moves with mix as well as with satisfaction.

Number portability made the number a live competitive measure rather than a statistic.