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Thursday, July 01, 2004
RP telephone companies adopt 2-pronged approach to hike sales
SEEKING to penetrate the cellular phone market further, telecommunication companies are going toward two directions.
According to Smart Communications Inc. public affairs head Ramon Isberto, cellular phone operators are now going after the C and D markets on the subscriber-base side, and the A and B markets on the cellular phone models side.
He said the industry is going toward two interconnected directions. One is to increase usage in the C and D markets, especially in the rural areas, while the other is to attract the A and B markets to shift from using monochrome phones to more high technology and sophisticated ones offering more services such as Internet access.
“These two directions are interrelated. As the higher-end market shifts to using the new model phones, they pass on their old phones to the lower-end market such as their yayas, helpers, drivers, people from the provinces, thereby increasing the usage of cellular phones in these areas,” Isberto said.
Replacement
Jun Yap, marketing director of Junrex Cellphones and Accessories Inc., earlier said cellular phone dealers are now seeing the emergence of another market—the replacement market—in the cellular phone industry.
“Even if all Filipinos will have cellular phones already, people keep on buying to replace their old phones with new models to be able to enjoy the technology in them. This is the emerging market of the industry,” he said.
Smart’s Isberto said much of the subscriber growth of the industry last year came from the Visayas and Mindanao, and the industry is expecting more growth as more people in the provinces take advantage of the cellular phones.
He said the telecommunications industry covers practically 90 percent of the country. But the country is availing itself of only 25 percent of this coverage. JBN
(July 1, 2004 issue)
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