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MANILA - Smart Communications Inc. on Tuesday said the rising "tiny bites" of mobile data usage is expected to boost its second-half earnings even though mobile penetration rate is approaching 100 percent.
Emmanuel Lorenzana, head of Smart’s Wireless Consumer Division, said a big chunk of mobile Internet use consists of access to web content “in small snacks.”
“People check their Facebook or Twitter. They look up what movies are showing in which theater and what the traffic is like on Edsa. This is the Internet in small bites,” Lorenzana said.
In the first quarter of this year, mobile Internet use of Smart subscribers surged by 71 percent year-on-year.
The boost came from the leap in sales of very popular smartphone handsets such as iPhones, and those from Samsung and Nokia featuring the full range of operating systems from Android to Windows Phone and iOS.
“The high-end handsets tend to get the most visibility, but the huge growth of mid- to low-end devices is just as important, if not more so, to our objective of putting the power of mobile Internet in the hands of more and more Filipinos,” Lorenzana said.
At end-March, Smart had 50.5 million subscribers on its mobile network, while its broadband subscriber base stood at 1.6 million.
Underpinning this push into mobile Internet is the P67-billion network modernization that PLDT and Smart are undertaking.
“We have led the industry and are far ahead of the competition in making our network the most extensive, reliable and 4G-capable. We expect to complete this within the year while others are only starting to roll out,” Smart chief wireless advisor Orlando B. Vea said.
Smart has 12,756 cellular and mobile broadband base stations providing coverage to over 99 percent of the population.
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