How did Smart, Globe and Sun fare in 2007?

In separate announcements, the three Philippine mobile service providers have claimed to share 55 million subscribers among themselves.

Leading the pack in terms of number of subscribers is Smart with 30 million as of end-2007.

Second is Globe Telecom with 20 million.

Sun Cellular claims a subscriber base of 5.5 million.

How did these companies fare in 2007?

Chairman: Manuel V. Pangilinan; President/CEO: Napoleon Nazareno

Major stockholders:

  • First Pacific: 31%
  • Nippon Telegraph and Telephone: 15%
  • Fidelity Investments: 5%

According to a financial report of PLDT, parent company of Smart, total wireless revenues for Jan.-Sept. 2007 was P66.4-billion, up by 10 percent from 2006. Of this figure, P61.1-billion was from cellular services and sales, also up by nine percent from 2006.

Revenues from prepaid subscribers (across all Smart brands Buddy, amp, Talk and Text) amounted to P55.1-billion while revenues from postpaid users (Gold and Infinity) were pegged at P4.4-billion.

By type of service: Smart obtained more revenues from data services (including text) to the tune of P32.65-billion while voice services amounted to P26.85-billion.

How much did Smart earn from text messaging? P29-billion.

The report said that:

Standard text messages totaled 19,278 million in the first nine months of 2007, a decrease of 4,545 million, or 19%, from 23,823 million in the same period in 2006 mainly due to a shift to bucketpriced text services. Bucket-priced text messages in the first nine months of 2007 totaled 139,183 million, a decrease of 13,471 million, or 9%, as compared to 152,654 million in the same period in 2006 mainly on account of the introduction in late 2006 of low-denomination text packages with a fixed number of SMS including off-network messages. While these promotional text offerings resulted in reduced traffic for Smart 258 Unlimited Text service, the yield per SMS improved significantly resulting in increased text revenues.

Smart’s net income for Jan.-Sept 2007: P22.947-billion.

Major stockholders:

  • Ayala Corp. controls 33 percent of common shares
  • Singapore Telecom, with 45 percent of common shares
  • Asiacom, with 100 percent of preferred shares

Board Chair is Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, while the President/CEO is Gerardo Ablaza.Globe’s 3Q financial report mentions total wireless revenues for Jan.-Sept. 2007 amounting to P43.967-billion, up from P39.932 for the same period of 2006.

Revenues from data services (including text) were P19.596-billion, up by 25 percent. Voice revenues also increased to P22.509-billion or by two percent.

Total net income of Globe: P9.7-billion

Sun is the wireless arm of Digitel.

It is 100-percent owned by Digitel. Digitel meanwhile is co-owned by JG Summit (47.4 percent), Telia AB (9.4 percent) and others.

Chair: Ricardo J. Romulo; CEO/President: James L. Go; Director: Lance Y. Gokongwei

According to its 3Q report, Digitel had total wireless revenues of P2.82-billion for the first nine months of 2007 but sustained a net loss of P442-million.

While still in the red, total wireless revenues grew from P2.192-billion in 2006. Net loss in the same period of 2006 was bigger: P1.099-billion.

Digitel reported that:

Revenues from unlimited services which accounted for 61.0% of wireless net service revenues, improved significantly by P591.2 million or 51.0% against revenues reported during the same period last year as our consumers experienced continuing improvement in our network coverage as a result of aggressive network roll-outs.

Expect bigger numbers once we get hold of the 4Q and annual reports of Smart, Globe and Sun.

Note: Company logos belong to their respective owners and were used merely to introduce portions regarding their 3Q 2007 financial status.