Smart among Top 10 RP firms

Smart Communications Inc. has been cited anew as one of the Philippines’ Top Ten leading companies in an annual survey conducted by the Far Eastern Economic Review, a leading Asian weekly magazine. This is the third time in the past four years that Smart has figured in the list.

"We are pleased that Smart has won this recognition for the third time now. Even if we are the youngest company in the Philippine list, we are happy that we have elicited a favorably consistent ranking among survey participants," said Napoleon L. Nazareno, Smart president and CEO.

In this year’s Review 200 survey, a ranking conducted annually by the magazine among leading companies engaged in business in Asia, Smart ranked ninth in overall performance among Philippine companies, an improvement from last year’s tenth placing. It also rose to No. 8 from No. 13 in the quality poll category.

Administered by AC Nielsen International Research (Hong Kong), the survey which is now in its ninth year, reflects readership perception of performances of over 500 companies in 11 Asian countries.

Almost 2,000 executives and professionals responded to the survey and ranked selected multinational and local firms on overall leadership as well as five other key leadership categories: service and product quality, management long term vision, innovation in responding to customer needs, financial soundness and whether other companies try to emulate them.

Smart was first cited in the Review survey in 1998, a year before it launched its GSM service. Although major competition was ahead in offering GSM service by five years, Smart has built the country’s largest digital network, with 5.4 million GSM subscribers and a capacity of eight million subscribers as of third quarter 2001. Smart ended the year 2001 transiting from a cellular operator to a wireless data services provider.

Over the past year, usage of mobile value-added services has been steadily rising. Among them are Smart zed, the mobile portal for personalized services, messaging applications such as Text Mail and chat services, and mobile commerce applications such as mobile banking, and Smart Money, the first electronic wallet card linked to a mobile phone network.

To date, Smart’s mobile banking service is also the most extensive in the country, with 10 partner banks, including Citibank, Security Bank and Metro Bank among those launched this year.