Predicting Customer Churn and Retention Rates in Nigeria’s Mobile Telecommunication Industry Using Markov Chain Modelling

Abstract The telecommunication industry is one of the service industries that is most affected by the problem of subscribers’ churn. Although several techniques have been used to predict customer churn in developed countries, many of those studies used secondary data which are not readily available in Nigeria for researchers. This study investigates how Markov chains help in modelling and predicting the customer churn and retention rate in the Nigerian mobile telecommunication industry. The data generated through the survey were input in the Windows-based Quantitative System for Business (WinQSB) for analysis. The results reveal that in the study area MTN has the highest retention rate (86.11%), followed by GLO (70.51%), Airtel (67%), and Etisalat (67.5%). This result has implications for telecom firms’ strategies for competitive advantage in particular and survival in general.