Mobile Internet to enhance bottomline - Smart

MANILA, Philippines - Smart Communications Inc., a unit of dominant carrier Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), sees mobile Internet usage that jumped 71 percent in the first quarter of the year further enhancing the financial bottomline of the company this year.

Emmanuel Lorenzana, head of the wireless consumer division of Smart, said in a statement that rising mobile data usage would power continued growth even as the cellular penetration rate approaches 100 percent in the second half of 2012.

Lorenzana said mobile Internet usage of Smart subscribers surged 71 percent in the first quarter of the year and that the surge in mobile data usage would come in the form of many “tiny bites of the Internet.”

Smart traced the surge in mobile Internet usage to the leap in sales of very popular smartphone handsets such as iPhones, Samsung, and Nokia featuring the full range of operating systems including iOS, Android and Windows Phone.

“The high-end handsets tend to get the most visibility, but the huge growth of mid- to low-end devices is just as important, if not more so, to our objective of putting the power of mobile Internet in the hands of more and more Filipinos,” he stressed.

The net income of Smart rose 15 percent to P28.9 billion in the first quarter of the year due to the availability of more affordable smart phones, driving wireless Internet data usage.

As of end-March, Smart had 50.5 million subscribers on its mobile network while its broadband subscriber base stood at 1.6 million.

He explained that a big chunk of mobile Internet usage consists of access to web content “in small snacks.”

“People check their Facebook or Twitter. They look up what movies are showing in which theater and what the traffic is like on EDSA. This is the Internet in small bites,” he quipped.

Smart has helped mobile phone users to “web-snack” through its award-winning web-based platform called SmartNet that debuted as the mobile web service platform behind the Netphone in September 2011.

SmartNet enables users to chat with fellow SmartNet users, search and add contacts from the cloud, check on their Facebook and Twitter feeds, post updates and read articles.

Data showed that the number of SmartNet users had risen to about 320,000 as of end-June 2012 and is rising by over 20,000 weekly partly because it has been made more easily available as an Android application that can be downloaded from Google Play.

“SmartNet is quietly revolutionizing how Filipinos can use the Internet – affordably, conveniently, safely,” Lorenzana said.

To support the proliferation of smartphones and data-capable feature phones, Smart has been aggressively marketing its various mobile Internet service packages, particularly its Always Online services.

Smart chief wireless advisor Orlando Vea said the P67 billion network modernization program of PLDT and Smart would be completed within the year while that of competitors are just starting to roll out.

“We have led the industry and are far ahead of the competition in making our network the most extensive, reliable and 4G-capable,” Vea stressed.

Smart has the largest and most pervasive cellular and broadband network and infrastructure in the country with 12,756 cellular or mobile broadband base stations providing coverage to over 99 percent of the population.

It is now working with sister-firm Sun Cellular to coordinate their network modernization efforts to support both call and text, and mobile broadband services.

In the first quarter of the year, the earnings of the PLDT Group fell six percent to P10.1 billion from P10.7 billion in the same quarter last year due to the decline in core net income and higher net foreign exchange and derivative gains as well as the full consolidation of the operating performance of Digital Telecommunications Philippines Inc. (Digitel).