Voice app experience in Philippines ranks among worst globally

MANILA, Philippines — Voice app experience in the Philippines, or calls made with apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger, has been rated as “very poor” and ranked among the worst globally, according to a report from mobile analytics firm OpenSignal.

In OpenSignal’s The State of Mobile App Experience report, the Philippines recorded a score of 62.9, putting it in the very poor classification where “most users are dissatisfied.”

For the country’s score, OpenSignal found that most users experienced significant call quality impairments and occasional instances of distortion, clicking sounds or silence during the call.

It can also be difficult to understand parts of the conversation without repetition.

The Philippines’ voice app experience score also positioned it near the bottom of the 80-country ranking. Only Ghana, Cambodia, Kenya, Libya and Uzbekistan posted lower scores than the Philippines.

OpenSignal’s voice app experience measures the quality of experience for over-the-top voice services —mobile voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook Messenger etc. — using a model derived from the International Telecommunication Union-based approach for quantifying overall voice call quality with a series of calibrated technical parameters. 

Simply, it seeks to determine how good or bad does a call on voice apps  render on the user’s network.

Of the 80 countries analyzed, 19 achieved a good rating, only six of which were from outside Europe. These six included Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.

All the European markets along with the US and Canada ranked as acceptable or above for voice app experience.

Nearly two-thirds of Latin American countries, along with the vast majority of African and Middle Eastern markets, meanwhile, rated poor or below.

“The insatiable growth in smartphone use along with the increasing ubiquity of data connections means that apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger are offering an entirely new platform for users to talk to each other,” OpenSignal said.

“Voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger offer an entirely new platform for users to call each other, bypassing the traditional cellular channels and offering a true online experience. Voice apps offer flexibility across a number of devices and networks, and have soared in popularity as smartphones become more and more ubiquitous,” it said.