The rate at which subscribers are leaving Israeli budget operator Golan Telecom has tripled since the company was sold to Electra Consumer Products, an Israeli air-conditioning, home appliance and consumer electronics manu-facturer, according to a report. In 2016, Golan lost 70,000 subscribers net. In the week before the deal, which was announced on 3 January, the operator lost 200 subscribers a day, and the pace at which subscribers were lost increased during the first week of January.

Tarifica’s Take

From its inception in 2012, Golan shook up the Israeli mobile market by dramatically undercutting the competition on price. In this way, it was able to capture about 10 percent of market share, while sharing Cellcom’s network. The acquisition by Electra will rescue Golan from massive debt, but it is scaring off a fast-growing number of Golan subscribers, who apparently foresee an end to the very low prices—a perception shared by market observers who hail the prospective rise in prices as a return to sanity, as it were. While there may be nothing Electra can do to staunch the bleeding of subscribers at the moment, the company should move aggressively to offer customers some tangible incentives to stay. Examples of such incentives could be new packages with creative plan features, customized offers tailored to the needs of certain customer demographics, special access to entertainment content. In the near term, generous limited-time promotions could also have a very beneficial effect for Golan.