Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. Global Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of PLDT Group, has made another breakthrough entry in the European market.

“It is our goal to make the 75 million subscribers of PLDT, Smart and Sun in the Philippines accessible to all our countrymen in the UK and soon the various parts of Europe,” said Alex Caeg, president and chief executive officer of PLDT Global.

Through an MVNO partnership with one of the most established operators and platform providers, Teleena—the Mobile Virtual Network Enabler of Vodafone in the United Kingdom, the collaboration is deemed to set the bar in the UK MVNO market specifically catering to the Filipinos.

Sealing the deal with a special pre-Christmas celebration on December 15, 2012 at the Brewery in London—they launched the home-grown Smart Pinoy SIM card, ready to serve the Filipino community in the UK.

“We will continue to explore possible partnership with Teleena not only in the UK but in other parts of the EU [European Union],” Caeg said.

The alliance of the two firms has brought forth to the Filipinos a well-differentiated product that brings the Smart brand experience and a slew of services familiar to them.

The company said that some of these product features include local and international Pass-a-load and E-Load services, affordable data bundles, an free 24/7 Filipino-speaking customer service and access to the Smart Pinoy Store.

But one of the key features of this service is that it gives the most affordable call and text rates to the Philippines and within the UK. Calling their loved ones back home on PLDT landlines, consumers can make P0.04/minute calls through the Sulit TipIDD feature, giving them more time to catch up with relatives despite the distance. IDD stands for international direct dialing.

SMART Pinoy subscribers can also make calls to any Philippine mobile number at P0.13/minute without any minimum top-up. They can also send text messages to any mobile number in the Philippines at P12 per SMS.