Slacker:
What do you think the gross and net subscribers adds are going to be for Q1 2002?
PJ has increased the estimate based on channel surveys to 225,000 net adds. I think that even the 225,000 net add number is low.
I tried to estimate the additions in two ways.
1. The overall age of the Leap's covered POPs by the end of Q1 2002 will be nearly 11 months. Leap has indicated that at the end of 12 months its typical market is penetrated to between 6 and 7 percent. Let us assume the lower number - 6 percent. So at the end of Q1 2002, based on 11 months age of the markets, the overall penetration can be assumed as 5.4 percentage. Therefore, the total subs will be 5.4/100*25,300,000 = 1,366,000. That's about an increase of 247,000. Net Adds = 247,000.
2. I looked at the approximate ratio of gross additions and inventory handsets of previous quarter. The number has varied between 1.9-3.4. Being conservative, assume that the Gross Adds in Q1 2002/Inventory Handsets in Q4 2001 is 1.6. With 45 M inventory in Q4 2001, and $185/handset, that's about 245,000 handsets. Gross adds = 1.6*245,000 = 392,000 Gross Adds. The net adds corresponding to that work out to be around 270,000.
So my estimates are between 250,000 to 270,000 Net Adds for Q1 2002. If they are much lesser, I will have to tweak my model. :-)
Arun |
