PLDT’s phone card services not affected by cellphone popularity

Despite the strong take-up of cellular phones, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co.’s (PLDT) phone card services, such as Touch Card, FonKard and Teletipid prepaid cards, continued to grow last year.

PLDT vice president for national retail marketing Joaquin San Agustin said they were able to maintain card sales of FonKard despite mobile phone proliferation and deployment of global system for mobile communications (GSM)-based payphones.

PLDT, he said, has ceased from putting up payphones and will instead redeploy them to higher revenue earning areas such as the malls, convenient stores, PLDT call malls and to accredited individual agents. These high-earning areas represent 70 to 80 percent of the payphones’ total usage.

As of end-2001, there were 10,000 PLDT payphones deployed nationwide, an increase of 2,000 from the previous year.

San Agustin said PLDT generated a total of P800 million from payphones in 2001. "The blue collar workers are the main clients of PLDT Fonkard who goes outside of the office to make calls. But due to the high penetration of cellular phones they now make lesser calls. That’s why we are bringing the payphones to high earning areas from the low earning areas," he explained.

On PLDT’s TouchCard, he said card sales grew 45 percent representing P425 million in gross revenue in 2001. "Inspite of limited media support, we achieved a 45-percent growth in 2001 compared to the previous year. Its platform capacity doubled to accommodate unserved demand," San Agustin explained.

Gross revenues from its Teletipid prepaid landline business meanwhile reached over P200 million in 2001 compared to the previous year of P8 million. It also experienced a 70-percent increased in the number of distribution outlets to 6,000. Despite this, PLDT Teletipid subscribers account for only nine to 10 percent of PLDT’s total fixed line subscribers.

"Suffice to say our net connection for 2001 of over 100,000 came from Teletipid. The continuous Teletipid growth is tied to sustained growth in the total subscriber base. It’s actually difficult right now to say how many of our postpaid have shifted to prepaid because we are doing a clean up right now. Some are even double posting, meaning those that got disconnected would apply for a Teletipid but would later reconnect their postpaid line," San Agustin said.

This year, PLDT will enhance product awareness, introduce Internet-based cardphones, come up with an alternative payment applications, and implement a quarterly trade program for major distributors. "We will focus more on media-based activities to make consumers aware of PLDT’s various card services. We will likewise concentrate on the re-deployment of payphones and come up with additional premium phone services," he said.

Meanwhile, PLDT has partnered with a local affiliate of Sun Moon Star, a Korean-based firm that will provide the backend system to run the former’s text pad.

San Agustin said SMS Global Technologies, an affiliate of Sun Moon Star, will be providing the system for PLDT’s newest product for its fixed line subscribers who frequently send text messages via a PLDT landline.

"They will basically be the one to provide the system. There will be no capital expenditure (capex) on our part since we have agreed on a revenue sharing arrangement. They will be providing the capex," he said.

The text pad is useful to those who send text messages using PLDT landlines. It will be available in mid-February of this year with an initial of 10,000 units to be circulated in the market in three months and will cost P2,500 each.

San Agustin said the text pads can be rented by existing subscribers as one way to make it affordable. "It can also be rent-to-own. We are hoping there will be a market for this," he said.

Meanwhile, negotiation on the possible interconnection of landline texting with other carriers will commence soon. San Agustin said they would ask the assistance of Smart Communications Inc. to help them out with the negotiations with rival firm Globe Telecom. "We are still formulating with Smart on how to discuss with Globe. I think it’s much easier if we ask Smart to help out with Globe because they already have a foundation with them. We are looking at simultaneous discussion meaning Smart will be there when the discussion starts," he said.