|
By Darwin G. Amojelar,
Reporter
DESPITE soaring consumer prices,
the average number of text messages sent per day rose by a fifth as
of June, the National Telecommunications Commission said Friday.
Edgardo Cabarios, NTC director
for common carrier and authorization, said the agency estimated
about 600 million texts per day as of June this year, higher by 20
percent than the average of 500 million texts per day in 2006.
“The system is processing 600
million texts a day,” Cabarios told reporters and calculated that
a subscriber sent 10 texts per day from only seven texts two to
three years ago.
Cabarios said subscribers have
begun shifting from voice call to text messages because of costlier
food and fuel. “The cheapest form of communication in the country
is still text,” he added.
Text revenues contributed about
55 percent to 60 percent of total wireless service revenues of
telecom firms.
As of June, the number of mobile
phone subscribers stood at more than 61 million. Of this, Smart
Communications Inc. and Pilipino Telephone Corp. (Piltel) have
combined subscribers of 33.2 million, Globe Telecom Inc. another
22.7 million, and Sun Cellular another six million.
Cabarrios earlier projected that
the number of mobile phone in the second half is likely to grow
between four and five million.
“For full year, it’s likely
to hit 65 million,” he said.
Cabarrios said that while the
number of subscribers is growing, the average revenue per user (ARPU)
is declining owing to inflation.
In the first half of the year,
Globe reported that its ARPU declined by 24 percent to P214 from
P280 in the same period last year. Smart’s ARPU also dropped by 16
percent to P220.
Globe, which is owned by Ayala
Corp. and Singapore Telecommunications Ltd., said its consolidated
profit dropped by 3 percent to P6.2 billion owing to lower operating
earnings and higher-income tax provisions.
Its second-quarter profit slipped
18 percent to P2.8 billion from P3.4 billion in the first quarter.
Partly owned by Hong Kong’s
First Pacific Co. Ltd. and Japan’s NTT group, Philippine Long
Distance Telephone Co., on the other hand, posted a second-quarter
profit of P8.8 billion from P 8.47 billion in the same period last
year.
This brought the telco’s
first-half net income to P19.3 billion, or 13 percent higher than
the P17.1 billion in the same six-month period last year.
Its core profit, which excludes
foreign exchange gains or losses and other non-recurring income,
reached P18.7 billion, an increase of 9 percent from the P17.2
billion recorded in the same period last year.
|
