Nepalis lose Rs 1 billion worth cell phones a year!

Published in THE KATHMANDU POST

By Thira L Bhusal
KATHMANDU, Feb 2

Cell phone users in Nepal lose about one billion rupees worth of mobile sets every year!
Sounds implausible? Here is the calculation.
"We receive, on average, 300 applications a day for retrieving old registered numbers and sim cards," said Ravindra Jha, manager at the Mobile Service Directorate of Nepal Telecom (NT). He said a roughly four-month observation conducted by NT suggested that it receives about 9,000 such applications a month.
Spice Nepal Pvt Ltd, which operates Mero Mobile services, claims that it receives, on average, 200 applications a day from its centers across the country seeking recovery of old registered numbers and sim cards. Sanat Sharma, brand manager of the company, said, "We have not studied the data thoroughly. But we estimate the number of such applications is 200 a day."
If these figures are true, Nepalis lose 500 mobiles a day. This may appear too large a number but considering that NT and Mero Mobile have a combined mobile subscriber base of over 2 million, it is just 0.025 percent of the mobile phone user
population.
Wholesale and retail mobile businesses in the capital say the price of mobile sets range from Rs 2,000 to Rs 65,000 in Nepal. What is the price of a mobile set that an average Nepali carries? It's hard to pinpoint the average price. But a general consensus among businesses is around Rs 6,000.
At this price, Nepalis lose Rs 3 million worth of mobile sets a day and well above Rs 1 billion a year! None of the insurance companies in Nepal offer insurance coverage for mobile phones lost.
Though mobile users suffer a financial loss, it offers mobile operators and the government additional revenue.
Each NT customer needs to pay Rs 565 to retrieve an old number while Mero Mobile charges Rs 283 for the same service. This means Nepal Telecom earns over Rs 61 million a year from customers who opt to retrieve their old numbers and sim cards. Likewise, Mero Mobile earns Rs 20 million a year in the same fashion. Plus those who find their lost mobile sets often obtain new sim cards either for themselves or for family members, providing additional revenue to the mobile operators. The government receives 13 percent VAT on each service purchase.
Jha, however, claims that NT also loses when customers lose mobile sets as such customers do not make phone calls for a couple of days.
Interestingly, the number of applications to retrieve old numbers is high on Sundays. "This is partly due to NT's day off on Saturday. But our informal study shows that many people lose their mobile sets Friday evening while they are in a more relaxed frame of mind and enjoying their weekend," Jha said.
Both NT and Mero Mobile receive applications for such services at two centers each in the capital. Telecom provides the services from its Jawalakhel and Tripureshwor offices while Mero Mobile receives such applications at Krishna Towers at New Baneshwor and at its Pulchowk branch. Both the companies also collect such applications from major towns and zonal or regional centers across the country.