Pinoys spending less on cell phone use amid economic difficulties

MANILA, Philippines – Filipinos are spending less these days on the use of cellular phone due to economic difficulties, Catanduanes Rep. Joseph Santiago, chairman of the House committee on information and communications technology, said yesterday.

He said in the first semester of the year, the more than 50 million mobile phone subscribers spent between P148 and P293 a month mainly for text messages.

This is 10 to 30 percent lower than what they spent monthly over the same period in 2007, he said.

“Filipinos are definitely spending less on mobile telephone services to make up for increased spending for other needs, primarily for food, electricity and transportation,” he added.

He pointed out that in times of economic difficulties, people save or don’t spend on what they think are non-essentials.

Santiago, former chairman of the National Telecommunications Commission, based his figures on the monthly average revenue per unit (ARPU) reported by the country’s three leading mobile phone service providers in the first six months of this year.

Smart Communications reported a monthly ARPU of P293, down 10 percent from P324 last year; while its sister company Piltel had an ARPU of P203, down 12 percent from P230.

Smart’s rival Globe Telecom posted a monthly ARPU of P283 for the first half of 2008, down 19 percent from P349 last year. Globe’s TM brand, the counterpart of Piltel’s Talk and Text, reported an ARPU of P148, lower by 31 percent from P216 in 2007.

Despite the drop in mobile phone spending, Santiago said Filipinos are actually sending more text messages every day.

“The combined traffic figures of Smart and Piltel indicate that their subscribers send an average of 23 text messages every day,” he said.

Smart and Piltel reported a total of 121.35 billion text messages in the first half of this year, up five percent compared to last year’s volume. Globe did not submit a report on text messaging.

Santiago said mobile phone subscribers managed to increase their revenues via promotional campaigns and by enlisting more users.

He said Smart and Piltel reported a total of 33.2 million subscribers as of the end of June this year, up 23 percent over the same period last year.

Globe reported a total of 22.7 million subscribers, up 25 percent from last year.   – Jess Diaz