Filipinos send 500M text messages daily
Darwin G AmojelarFILIPINOS sent an average of 500 million text messages a day last year, doubling the number of text messages sent in 2005, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) said.
Edgardo Cabarios, director NTC’s Common Carrier and Authorization Division (CCAD), attributed the increase to the promotional gimmicks offered by mobile-phone service providers like unlimited text messaging, voice call discounts and the rising subscriber number.
Data from the NTC show that the country’s subscriber growth rose by 23 percent to 42.87 million subscribers last year from the 34.8 million in 2005.
Of the total, Smart Communications Inc. has 17.2 million subscribers; Globe Telecom, 16.7 million; Pilipino Telephone Corp., 6.97 million; and Digital Telecommunications Philippines Inc. (Digitel), 2 million.
In addition, Next Mobile has total subscribers of 22, 411; Extelcom, 10,374; and Connectivity Unlimited Resources Enterprise (CURE), 1,000.
“We expect this trend to continue,” Cabarios said.
He added that the strong economic growth and the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) remittances to the country boosted consumer spending for cell-phone handsets.
The number of landline subscribers also rose by 7 percent to 3.63 million last year from 3.37 million in 2005.
The PLDT landline subscribers dropped to 2 million last year, from 2.04 million in 2005, or a total market share of 55.23 percent.
Piltel’s total subscribers are 46,202; Innove, 329,908; BayanTel, 227,057; Bell Telecom, 271,000; Philcom, 53,098; ETPI, 22,467; and PT&T, 14,193.
Earlier, the International Data Corp. (IDC) reported that the country’s telecommunication industry projected to grow by 11 percent over the next five years.
The international research firm attributed the growth to the data services segment that is expected to post stronger performance, boosted by strong uptake of texting and Internet connectivity, coupled by price pressures and data communication substitutions on voice services.
Last year the IDC estimated that the market grew by 6 percent year on year, posting $2.956 billion in annual SP revenue.
The mobile-services market continued to dominate the telecommunications market with 68-percent revenue market share, while telecom network services and Internet access services segments had 25 percent and 7 percent, respectively
But the voice market was inhibited by aggressive price drops and promotions as well as the expanding availability of alternative data means of basic communications.
