Comparison of churn rates

One of the most closely guarded secrets in business seems to be the churn rate. This is the rate of attrition, over a period of time, that subscriber-based customers "churn out" (unsubscribe) of the customer base. Churn rates are often measured in monthly terms, especially in the cable and satellite television and the wireless telephone industries. Business analysts will often look at the churn rate on a quarterly basis. Likewise, an annual rate of churn is a commonly used measure.

Recently, I got to searching the Internet for a comprehensive list of churn rates, if such a thing existed. A churn rate table, across industries. But alas, nobody seems to have compiled a database measuring the percent of customers who churn out of various companies, across sectors. So, I had no choice but to create such a table.

If you try to discover reported churn rates, the first thing you'll notice is that companies will use various time periods as the basis. Monthly, quarterly, annually. I even found one study of lawyer retention rates that spanned a four-year period. So, to try to make this an apples to apples comparison, I converted all of the churn rates I found to "per year" terms. Note, however, if a company reported a 2% monthly churn rate, I did not say that equates to a 24% annual rate (2% times twelve months). Rather, I calculated a sliding count, such that in the first month, 100 customers would dwindle to 98. But in the second month, the 98 customers would decrease to only 96.04 customers (98 minus 2% of 98).

The table below expresses 67 different churn rates at different companies in different industries at different times. As I discover more churn rates in my travels, I will update my spreadsheet and occasionally edit this chart. I'm quite certain that I will get feedback in the Comments section, pointing out the perceived errors in my table, or suggesting new data points worthy of adding. I look forward to that! For verification, I have placed a link at the bottom of the table, showing the source material for this table. It would be fantastic if this post became the Internet's number-one repository of publicly available churn rates.

Since I've put in some backbreaking coding work creating this table, I would at least appreciate that if you use it and get value out of it, please return a favor by subscribing to my blog via FeedBlitz. Just type your e-mail address into that form over there, on the right. That way, you'll be updated when I have something new to report.

And now, without further ado, Inside Market Research presents the...

BIG LIST OF CHURN RATES

Annual Churn	Company	Industry	Data Year	Country
1.0%	Cox (triple-play customers)	Cable TV	2002	US
4.0%	C I Host	Web Hosting	2003	US
4.0%	Earthlink	Internet Service	1999	US
4.5%	Greenberg Traurig (lawyers)	Legal	2003	US
4.6%	Reed Smith (lawyers)	Legal	2003	US
4.6%	Sonnenschein (lawyers)	Legal	2003	US
4.9%		Local Telecom	2000	US
5.0%	Piper Rudnick (lawyers)	Legal	2006	US
5.3%	Baker & McKenzie (lawyers)	Legal	2005	US
5.7%		Local Telecom	2002	US
6.0%	Sirius	Satellite Radio	2005	US
6.0%		Wireless	2002	US
6.1%		Local Telecom	2001	US
6.3%	Holland & Knight (lawyers)	Legal	2004	US
6.4%	White & Case (lawyers)	Legal	2003	US
6.5%	McGuire Woods (lawyers)	Legal	2003	US
6.6%	Sirius	Satellite Radio	2004	US
7.0%	Morgan, Lewis (lawyers)	Legal	2003	US
7.2%	Sirius	Satellite Radio	2006	US
7.5%	Nextel	Wireless	2001	US
7.9%	Howrey (lawyers)	Legal	2003	US
8.0%	Triton PCS	Wireless	2001	US
8.0%	U.S. Cellular	Wireless	2001	US
9.0%		Wireless	2001	US
9.6%	Duane Morris (lawyers)	Legal	2003	US
9.6%		Wireless	2000	US
10.0%		Web Hosting	2003	US
10.0%	Western Wireless	Wireless	2001	US
10.3%	Akin Group (lawyers)	Legal	2003	US
11.0%	Alamosa PCS	Wireless	2001	US
14.0%	Virgin Mobile	Wireless	2005	GB
15.0%	Nascar.com (premium subscribers)	Sports Media	2004	US
16.0%	Nextel	Wireless	2005	US
17.0%	Colorado teachers in 'excellent' schools	Education	2004	US
17.0%	Schnader Harrison (lawyers)	Legal	2003	US
17.0%		DBS TV	2002	US
17.2%	Vodaphone	Wireless	2005	IT
18.0%	DirecTV	DBS TV	2003	US
18.3%	Vodaphone	Wireless	2005	DE
19.0%	Alltel	Wireless	2005	US
20.0%	Hutchison Telecommunications	Wireless	2005	IN
20.0%		Wireless	2001	AU
21.9%	Vodaphone	Wireless	2005	ES
22.0%	Analog cable subscribers	Cable TV	2002	US
23.0%	Cingular	Wireless	2005	US
23.0%	Sprint	Wireless	2005	US
23.0%	Colorado teachers in 'unsatisfactory' schools	Education	2004	US
25.0%		Wireless	2005	GB
26.0%	Sprint	Wireless	2005	US
26.0%	Subscribers	Cable TV	2002	US
29.7%	Vodaphone	Wireless	2005	GB
30.0%		LD Telecom	2002	US
31.0%	Globe	Prepaid Wireless	2003	PH
31.0%		Pagers	1998	US
34.8%	T-Mobile	Wireless	2005	GB
35.0%	Maricopa County (anglers)	Recreation	2002	US
36.0%	Las Americas - Cable California	Cable TV	2002	MX
37.0%		E-mail addresses	2003	US
45.0%		E-mail addresses	2004	US
46.0%		Prepaid Calling Cards	2004	US
46.0%	Digital cable subscribers	Cable TV	2002	US
51.0%	Globe	Prepaid Wireless	2004	PH
52.0%	Florence (AL) Times Daily (readers)	Newspapers	2005	US
58.0%	Snowball.com	E-mail newsletter	2000	US
78.0%	Touch Mobile	Prepaid Wireless	2004	PH
93.0%	VOOM	HD TV	2004	US
93.0%	Runoff at time of sale	Home Mortgage	2002	US

Source material link:
http://tinyurl.com/churn-rates


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