March 22 2004

Hutch and Aircel jointly lead the rankings of Indian cellular service providers based on their ability to meet customer expectations, according to a new survey. State-owned Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), which offers mobile services under the `Dolphin' brand, has been rated at the bottom of the list, according to the annual survey on mobile operators by TNS Celltrack (formerly known as NFO).

While Hutch and Aircel share the top honours with 78 points each, Reliance Cellular got a score of 73 while Tata's Idea and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) shared the next rank with 72 points each.

Bharti and Spice were next on the list with 70 and 67 points respectively. The global market information provider measures mobile service providers on the basis of level of satisfaction of users, as also retention and brand loyalty. This is the fourth year when TNS has released its rankings of Indian mobile phone operators.

Reliance Infocomm Limited and Tata Indicom Limited that provide mobile services using the CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) platform, have been included in the survey for the first time.

The two operators, however, are in the bottom half of the heap, which implies that they have not been able to anticipate and meet customer expectations during 2003.

The final tally for the top five performers among individual operators has Hutch leading in Gujarat followed by Idea, Reliance Infocomm and BSNL in Madhya Pradesh. Hutch Mumbai occupies the fifth slot.