Filipinos send more than 15 text messages a day
By Riza T. Olchondra
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 19:06:00 08/29/2008
Filed Under: mobile phones, Telecommunications Services
MANILA, Philippines—The average cellular phone user in the Philippines sends 15 text messages a day, according to telecommunications companies.
The Philippine Long Distance Telephone group estimates that the 33 million subscribers of Smart and Talk N' Text collectively send 500 million to 600 million text messages a day. That means the average subscriber of the PLDT group sends about 15 to 18 text messages a day.
The group's incoming and outgoing traffic combined is estimated at around one billion text messages per day.
Sun Cellular subscribers are estimated to send 10 to 15 text messages per day. With 6.5 million subscribers, that means the network was handling up to 100 million outgoing text messages every day as of end-June.
Globe Telecom Inc. did not provide an estimate for its outgoing traffic, but previously said its network handled 500 million to 700 million incoming and outgoing messages per day. Its subscriber base as of end-June was 22.7 million.
Estimates from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) were more conservative.
The telco regulator said the Philippines' average cellular phone user sends about 10 text messages a day.
NTC Common Carrier Division chief Edgardo Cabarrios said in an interview that the estimate is "very conservative" considering the popularity of unlimited text promos. He also said that even this conservative estimate was still one of the highest in the world.
"In terms of total volume, other countries may have higher numbers because of sheer population size. But per capita, the Philippines still has among the highest volume of text activity, if not the highest," Cabarrios said.
He also said that when unlimited text promos were not yet popular, only an average of seven text messages were sent per person per day.
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