The High Holy Days had little effect on the number of subscribers switching mobile telephone companies; the pace did not slow. As in most months during the past year, Golan Telecom Ltd. continued to lead the field. The company will probably reach 600,000 subscribers next month. It already has 590,000 subscribers, and unless changes occur in the coming months, it will be probably be the 2014 leader in new subscribers.

The company gained a net 13,300 subscribers in October, far ahead ofHOT Mobile Ltd. with 7,600. As usual, Hot Mobile recruited slightly more subscribers than Golan, but its subscriber losses continue to drag down its results. Hot subsidiary Mirs is also losing subscribers, although these subscriber losses are having no significant effect; most of the subscriber losses are from Hot Mobile itself. The Hot group’s negative service image continues to affect its subscriber loss rate, and the large-scale efforts by the company to deal with this problem have not yet produced results.

Among the older operators, Partner Communications Ltd. (Nasdaq:PTNR; TASE: PTNR) continues to lose more net subscribers thanPelephone Communications Ltd. and Cellcom Israel Ltd. (NYSE:CEL; TASE:CEL), as has been the case for several months now. Partner is also recruiting fewer subscribers, probably because its sale price is higher than that of Pelephone and Cellcom. Cellcom is losing more subscribers than anyone else in the market, followed by Pelephone. Partner is losing the fewest, but is also recruiting the fewest, so it lost more net subscribers in October than any other company.

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It is already fairly clear that the movement of subscribers in the cellular market is circular. There are tens of thousands of customers regularly switching from one company to another as the result of a bargain campaign and pre-paid subscribers generating low average income; it is not worthwhile for the companies to invest in retaining such subscribers. The picture continues to be especially gloomy for the virtual operators. YouPhone continues to lose subscribers, despite its low prices and the large data package it offers (8 gigabytes). Its switch to using the Pelephone network is not achieving the desired change, and the same is true for Rami Levy, which lost no subscribers in October, but for whom the cellular field is neither significant nor growing. p>Published by Globes [online], Israel business news -www.globes-online.com - on November 2, 2014