Smart sees sustained growth demand for mobile data

MANILA, Philippines — PLDT Inc.’s wireless subsidiary Smart Communications Inc. expects revenues from mobile data to keep rising, especially as subscribers increase their internet usage.

Smart said revenues from mobile data hit P49.97 million in the nine months to September, 40 percent higher than pre-pandemic figures.

Smart attributed the growth in mobile data income to Filipinos increasing their use of the internet to complete day-to-day transactions due to the pandemic.

Its active data users have gone up by four percent on a yearly basis to 41.6 million as of September, largely due to the introduction of value products for subscribers of Smart Prepaid, Smart Postpaid, Smart Bro and TNT.

Also, Smart said average monthly mobile data usage per subscriber spiked to 8.8 GB while total mobile data traffic jumped by 30 percent to 3,163 petabytes.

Smart said the increases contributed in pushing the revenues of PLDT’s individual wireless segment up by 84 percent.

Francis Flores, Smart senior vice president and head of consumer business, said the wireless arm of PLDT would bank on its value offers to sustain the growth of its user base.

“We continue to leverage our network leadership and superiority as we continue to roll out new promos that will address the needs and wants of our Smart and TNT customers,” Flores said.

Flores said the individual wireless business is expected to benefit from the improving mobility of Filipinos in the pandemic aftermath.

Smart sees data usage increasing during the holiday season when consumer spending also goes up.

Flores said the growing popularity of user-made content in sites like TikTok should boost data traffic nationwide. To meet the connectivity needs of customers, Smart put out value offers like Power All and Double Giga that offer additional data at affordable price points.

Smart relies on the expansion of its integrated fixed and mobile network to improve the delivery of its services.

As of September, Smart had deployed 77,200 base stations across the country, including 7,300 5G base stations and 40,000 4G and LTE base stations, allowing it to service 96 percent of the population with 3G, LTE and 5G connection.