After the number portability function is enabled, the largest number of users transfer out of China Mobile

Number portability was officially launched nationwide on November 27. Previously, many people speculated that China Mobile would be under the greatest pressure. Judging from the data during the trial operation period released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China Mobile did indeed have the most lost users among the three major operators.

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As of November 26, the number of people who have ported their numbers to other networks accounts for less than 2% of the total number of people. Although the proportion is small, the absolute number is still considerable. Before the official launch, the number portability was piloted in five provinces including Tianjin, Hainan, Jiangxi, Hubei and Yunnan on December 1, 2018. A total of 3.16 million users completed the number portability, accounting for 1.8% of the total number of users. Since the trial operation of number portability in the other 26 provinces on November 10 this year, as of the 26th, a total of 112,000 number portability authorization codes have been issued, assisting 72,000 users to complete the number portability.

The number of users who switched out of China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom accounted for 16.3%, 57.6% and 26.1% of all users who switched out, respectively, while the number of users who switched in accounted for 49.3%, 28.1% and 22.6%. In other words, China Mobile had the most users who switched out, and when switching to other operators, nearly half of them chose China Telecom.

However, when China Mobile released the data, it used another comparison method: the porting rate. China Mobile said that during the trial operation in 26 provinces, their porting rate was only 0.003%, far less than China Telecom's 0.007% and China Unicom's 0.010%. It should be noted that as of August this year, China Mobile's total number of users reached 940 million, 200 million more than China Telecom and China Unicom combined. However, it can also be said that with its existing user base, China Mobile can stay calm.

During the trial operation of number portability, the most complained thing was probably the "obstruction" of operators, who refused to allow users to switch networks on the grounds that their contracts had not expired or that they had activated certain services. However, after the official launch, perhaps due to the pressure of public opinion and the restriction of the "Number Portability Service Management Regulations" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology that "no interference with user choices and obstruction of number portability", the situation seems to have improved. Users who intend to switch networks have received "caring" calls from operators and accidentally unlocked low-priced packages. Obviously, no matter how many users there are, number portability has made the three major operators feel a sense of crisis, which is a good thing for users.

Judging from the general feedback on the Internet, price and signal are the two main reasons that prompt users to change operators. China Unicom and China Telecom have captured a lot of users with their Internet packages in recent years. In this regard, China Mobile's response is quite slow, but the signal problems of China Unicom and China Telecom are also often criticized. It seems difficult to have the best of both worlds.

In addition to the restrictions on porting out, technical issues such as the inability to recharge the mobile phone normally and the inability to receive text messages after number portability have also made many people hesitant. According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, for the problem of not receiving text messages, the three operators have adopted a "bottom-line forwarding" approach, using the inter-network forwarding function to solve the problem of text messages sent to the wrong telecom company after number portability.

With the arrival of 5G, the coverage and experience of 5G signals will play a decisive role when the package prices of the three companies are almost the same. Perhaps the peak of number portability will come after 5G becomes popular in the next few years.