Rightly or wrongly, Vonage's key marketing metrics get compared to those of cable or telco companies. Vonage's cost of acquiring a customer, its churn rate and average revenue per customer each month always are pointed to as issues. Well, compared to the best run telcos, that's true. Consider Telus, which operates largely in Western Canada. It has average revenue per unit of $64.50. Vonage is in the twenties. It has churn of 1.33 percent a month. Vonage's churn is double that. Acquisition cost is $436 a customr, which in about what Vonage spends. The issue is that Vonage's ARPU is less than half of what Telus gets, and Vonage keeps a customer half as long as Telus.
On the other hand, Vonage's costs of doing business are lower as well. Also, keep in mind that Telus is, by some measures, among the best-performing service providers in the world, and its fourth quarter 2006 results confirm that. On average, Telus keeps a customer more than six years. It is aided mightly in that regard by its wireless performance. So far, Telus and other leading wireless providers are turning in the best churn performance for virtually any consumer application one can think of.
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