Whole Lot Of Texting Going On
Sep 3rd, 2008 | By Philly | Category: Phils BusinessStill think only of the Philippines as a poor country? As I have said before there is a lot of money in the Philippines and some very rich people who amass it, spend it and apparently enjoy it. The big difference with say the US is, in the US there are very few (proportionally) truly poor people …even the average unemployed welfare mother or lad-off senior citizen is rich compared with a poor person in the Philippines … it’s the distribution of wealth that is such a culture shock, not the lack of wealth itself.
Many people in the USA have never even texted or sent out a text. It’s treated as something optional for teenagers as far as the average person thinks. It’s different in the Philippines.
Wer na u? Yo, RP texters send 600M messages a day!
If texting were an Olympic event, we would have brought home the gold.
The average mobile phone user in the Philippines sends around 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. This means the average subscriber of the PLDT group taps out 15 to 18 text messages on the cellular phone per day. … full Philippine texting article here.
600 million? How much is that? here’s a scale drawing that illustrates a million pennies. So think of this blog post having 600 of these drawings (wow, that would take some server space and load time, wouldn’t it?)
Yep, 600 copies of the picture … that’s how many texts flow per day here … and then consider this. On average each text costs 1 peso … about 2 US cents at today’s rate. If you do the math, that is about $4.7 Billion US dollars per year. Maybe not as much as Google makes, but a long, long way from "chump change".
Oh, and regarding the cost to the phone companies to provide all this service? texting is essentially a zero cost operation. The cellular network itself has to be built with several "text only" control channels which are unused much of the time … Text messages are sent over these idle channels on a "best effort" basis … that’s why sometimes texts are delivered slow, or not at all when the network gets busy. The network itself is built and maintained by the charges for regular vice calls, texts essentially "go along for the ride" so the companies are basically paying nothing for that extra 4.7 billion a year … not a bad return on investment, eh?
Still think there’s no money in the Philippines? (by the way, PLDT is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (PHI), it’s close to $70 today, take a look at its past five year’s performance, if you are the kind of person who follows stocks).
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“PLDT said the combined impact of rising energy and food prices in the country was fuelling inflation and contributing to slower growth. Bloomberg reports that only last week Filipino telcos such as PLDT and Globe Telecom slashed 50% off the cost of sending an SMS for three months after the country’s president, Gloria Arroyo, asked their to help to temper rising inflation.”
This is funny - savings on texts to temper rising inflation?
PHI gives out dividends 2x a year - current dividend yields 5.43% - not bad.
I forgot to add: As of today it closed at $58.88 from a high of 76.75. The yield of 5.43% is based on the $58.88 price.
@Ellen: Funny indeed. And, of course giving up (supposedly) 50% of an income stream, even if the income stream costs nothing in the first place is injurious to the bottom line …but I also see a lot of flame and furor in the news here in the Manila area that indicates PLDT is not really giivng up 50% of the rate after all … it is alleged to be some accounting legerdemain, something I am sure present company knows nothing about
Here’s one example of why 50% doen’t really mean 50%.
I buy a prepaid load card every month or so. It always includes 50 or 100 “free” texts. I never use even 20 texts in a month … and those texts, as any accountant would agree, are not really ‘free’, some part of the 300 Pesos I am paying for the load card accounting-wise is tied to those ‘free’ texts. I just don’t pay separately for each text. In effect I have paid for as many as 100 texts I will never use … so it really costs them nothng to “write down” the book value. Even when you buy just a few Pseos of “load” at a sari-sari store you always get some “free” texts … It’s a great world, the carriers are selling somehting which effectively doesn’t cost them anything, and then they don’t have to provide all that they sold anyway. I love it
@Ellen: Thanks for checking on that, ellen. I wonder how that compares with the North American telecom “biggies”? (I don’t dabble in stocks at all). Even at their presnt “down” price, though, seems a heck of a lot better than the rates for CD’s and other “safe” US investments I see.