Telco unfazed by SIM card purge

MANILA  -Despite SIM (subscriber identity module) card registration purging nearly half of its subscribers, Dito Telecommunity has remained optimistic and is even poised to enter the enterprise segment to beef up its presence.

Evelyn Jimenez, chief commercial officer of the third telecommunications player, recently told reporters in an interview they had secured nearly all of the company’s active users who were generating revenues for them.

“We’re not really worried about the rest of it who didn’t register. Our business is protected already,” she said.

After the July 25 deadline and five-day grace period for the SIM card registration, Dito saw only 51.72 percent or 7.74 million cards out of 14.96 million registered. In comparison, Globe Telecom clocked in 53.7 million while Smart Telecommunications Inc. registered 52.5 million.

“SIM registation was a coming out party [of Dito]. Although we are a far third, definitely, we are in the running,” DITO chief administrative officer Adel Tamano said.

The unregistered SIM cards, Jimenez explained, could be those abandoned by the subscribers or used for text scams.

She said the telco was eyeing to grow its subscribers to 9 million to 10 million this year, which would be driven by the prepaid segment.

In addition, she sees the company’s 5G postpaid home WiFi product boosting subscriber base. The target is to have a minimum of 50,000 consumers by the end of the year from the current 30,000.
She noted that the average revenue per user had also now increased to P107 from about P80 a year ago.

The telco is aiming to further hike this to P125 within the year.

Meanwhile, Jimenez shared DITO’s plan to offer products for enterprises this year, targeting the micro, small and medium enterprises which she described as “underserved” and “unserved” markets.

“We can create a bundle of solutions for them,” she said.

In the first year of its enterprise business, the Dito official said they wanted it to account for 5 percent of the company’s total revenues. This is seen to grow to as much as 18-percent in terms of top-line contribution in the next three years.

Dito launched in June its postpaid plans that range from P588 to P1,688 per month. A plan may include unlimited calls and text to all networks, 12-month Prime Video subscription and DITO reward points. INQ