Spanish Mobile Churn Hits Record Levels

Spanish mobile phone operators lost a record number of clients in April 2012, with some 70 percent of defections occurring at Telefonica and Vodafone, as they stopped subsiding smartphones for cash-strapped customers, CNBC reports. 


Observers will quickly speculate on why the historically-high rate of churn is happening. Some obvious explanations include the economic crisis, or perhaps the end of device subsidies, which might reduce demand for new phones. 


Around 380,000 customers ditched their mobile phone lines in April, marking the third straight month of decline in the overall customer base in austerity-crippled Spain, where one in four people is unemployed, the Spanish regulatory body says. 


"This crash for mobile phone operators has been especially notable in the prepay sector, which lost 297,984 clients," regulator Comision del Mercado de Telecomunicaciones says.