Mobile phone firms may fail to match last year's customer growth

MANILA, Philippines - Philippine mobile phone companies may be unable to match last year’s subscriber growth, prompting them to focus on enhancing revenues instead. These, among others, were disclosed by top executives of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., the country’s leading telecommunications company, and Globe Telecom Inc., the second-largest mobile phone operator. Globe’s subscriber growth last year may not be repeated this year, Gerardo C. Ablaza Jr., the company’s chief executive officer, said. Its subscribers rose by a million last year, bringing its total customer base to 24.7 million in 2008, higher than 20.3 million during the previous year. Touch Mobile, its mass market brand, accounted for 70 percent of the 4.4 million subscriber hike. Although the company increased its wireless subscribers last year, revenues earned from the business fell by one percent to P55.6 billion. Customers used less of the service and increasing incidence of multi-SIM (subscriber identification module) use. At end-2008, the SIM penetration rate had hit 75 percent. Of the figure, an estimated 16 to 17 percent own more than one SIM card. For its part, PLDT, the country’s largest corporation, said its mobile phone subscribers increased last year despite a challenging environment. PLDT’s combined subscriber base rose at a faster rate, reaching 35.2 million as of end-December last year, 17.3 percent compared to the previous year. Of the total figure, 20.9 million were customers of Smart Communications Inc. which reported 600,000 more subscribers for the year. Meanwhile, the company’s mass market brand, Talk ‘N Text of Pilipino Telephone Corp. added 4.6 million customers, bring its total subscribers to 14.3 million from 9.7 million subscribers in 2007. PLDT chairman Manual V. Pangilinan also “doubted that [the company] could add another five million subscribers this year." The company could attract “around three to four million only," Pangilinan said. Despite lower projections, the company’s January results are slightly higher than those reported during the same month last year. “We are slightly encouraged by that," Pangilinan said. “Let's remember these are early days. The indication so far is that we are slightly ahead of last year. Remember January is usually a slow month because after December splurge it usually slows down." The company’s core profit may reach P37 billion, Pangilinan added. PLDT expects service revenues for last year to hit P142 billion, up by 5 percent from the previous year. - GMANews.TV