PLDT eyes 40% of Pinoys in Singapore

Business Mirror
Feb 16, 2006

PLDT eyes 40% of Pinoys in Singapore

FOUR out of 10 Filipinos working in Singapore are expected to sign up with the Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT) Group's mobile phone services using the facilities of a Singaporean mobile services operator, a top PDLT official said Tuesday.

There is an estimated 130,000 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Singapore . PLDT president Napoleon Nazareno said in an interview that the company expects to tap a significant market share of the city's cellular subscribers in its first two years of operations.

"We are looking at 30 percent to 40 percent of the Filipino community that will subscribe to the service in the first two years," said Nazareno.

PLDT has recently partnered with Mobile One, one of Singapore 's innovative mobile and international direct dial (IDD) service providers. Next month, PLDT Singapore, a unit of the phone giant, will offer mobile- phone services in the city through a tieup with M1.

PLDT Singapore will use the network and operational infrastructure of M1 to also offer value-added services such as Filipino-centric content and m-commerce services meeting the needs of the Filipino community in the city.

PLDT Global president and CEO Alfredo S. Panlilio said it and Smart Communications Inc. will bring their respective strengths in addressing the needs of the Filipino community in Singapore .

PLDT Global is the parent company of PLDT Singapore.

"We are confident that our mobile services in Singapore , with the value of the PLDT and Smart brands and the uniquely Filipino features, will be a perfect fit for our OFWs," said Panlilio.

The new mobile service will be marketed under the Smart brand by PLDT Singapore. This will be similar to the 1528 Smart service launched in Hong Kong in 2004.

Nazareno said the company's market share in Hong Kong had gone up to 50 percent as of end-2005. "The service is already very strong there," he said. It has so far registered 25,000 users.

The service was launched in September 2004 in partnership with CSL. L. Lectura