ABS-CBN to stop mobile service by end-November 2018

MANILA, Philippines — ABS-CBN Corp.’s mobile service will see its five-year operations officially come to a close by the end of next month, the broadcast giant announced yesterday.

ABS-CBN said ABS-CBNmobile prepaid, postpaid and SkyMobi subscribers would continue to enjoy text, call and data services until Nov. 30 after its five-year service agreement with Globe Telecom was not renewed.

All ABS-CBNmobile and SKYmobi promo offers would also no longer be offered to subscribers effective Oct. 25, the network giant said.

“After a thorough assessment, ABS-CBN Convergence deemed its current mobile business model to be financially unsustainable. As a result, ABS-CBN Convergence and Globe have reached an agreement not to renew their mobile network sharing contract,” ABS-CBN said in a stock exchange filing yesterday.

“ABS-CBN Convergence expresses its gratitude to its loyal subscribers and will provide them with updates on their plans and subscriptions,” it said.

ABS-CBN and Globe entered into a partnership in 2013 for a five-year services agreement to deliver content and telecom services on mobile devices through its ABS-CBNmobile brand. The services agreement expires this year.

As the mobile network sharing winds down, both firms said they would continue to bank on their competencies and focus on new synergies to serve their customers better.

Among the new strategies include the promotional bundling of ABS-CBN TVplus boxes with Globe At Home  prepaid WiFi and making ABS-CBN TVplus’ KBO and iWantv services available to all Globe subscribers.

ABS-CBN is a listed media and entertainment organization which has business interests in merchandising and licensing, mobile and online multimedia services, glossy magazine publishing, video and audio post production, overseas telecommunication services, money remittance, cargo forwarding, TV shopping services, theme park development and management, property management and food and restaurant services, and cinema management.

The company is also the first TV network in the country to broadcast in digital.

Globe, meanwhile, has a mobile subscriber base of 65.1 million as of end-June, nine percent more than the 59.7 million subscribers in the same period last year. 

Total home broadband subscriber base also stood at over 1.5 million in the first semester, 22 percent higher from a year ago.