Texting in Japanese, Chinese now possible with Smart’s expanded service

REPORT FROM BUSINESSWORLD SMART Communications, Inc. (Smart), the mobile phone network arm of the Philippine Long Distance Co. (PLDT) expanded its international text-messaging platform to offer Japanese and Chinese short messaging service (SMS). "Japanese and Chinese nationals in the Philippines can now send and receive text messages in their respective languages to loved ones in their home country and vice versa," the company said. Prior to this, the leading wireless services provider previously offered Korean SMS. With the recent expansion, Smart became the first company in the country to offer SMS service in Japanese and Korean languages. "People communicate best in their native tongue. By offering Japanese and Chinese SMS, Smart is simply enhancing its basic SMS service to meet the communication needs of all its subscribers, regardless of their location and nationality," Smart Wireless Consumer Division Head Danilo J. Mojica said. Prior to offering the service, SMS messages sent by subscribers who used handsets that were capable of Japanese or Chinese character input, were sometimes not readable when received in Japan and China. Smart said it offered the service to allow for better communication among Japanese or Chinese subscribers. "Since not all of their contacts abroad are proficient in the English language, most Japanese and Chinese nationals in the country use phonetics in their messages to be understood by their contacts abroad," Smart said. The foreign nationals can now use their handsets capable of Japanese or Chinese character input to compose messages in either languages and send to a Japan or China-based number. Data from the Tourism department show that the country had 34,156 Japanese visitors as of July 2007, accounting for 12.2% of the 281,032 tourists for the period. China tourists accounted for 4.7% of the total at 13,304 people while Korea accounted for 22.3% or 62,692 tourists. — MGSR/BUSINESSWORLD