Rising mobile data revenues shore up SMART revenues

Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) posted two sequential quarters of top line growth for the first time in eight quarters on the back of rising mobile data revenues.

Smart registered R14.8 billion in service revenues for the first quarter of the year, a 2 percent increase from a year ago.

Wireless individual data revenues jumped 21 percent to R6.5 billion this first quarter, with data now accounting for 44 percent of its revenues.

“The contribution from data and digital to our total business continues to grow steadily," Ernesto R. Alberto, PLDT and Smart Executive Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer, acknowledged.

"We will accelerate this further as we transform our networks into powerful platforms for delivering digital services and solutions."

Long Term Evolution (LTE) migration efforts also showed significant take-up, with the number of LTE subscribers tripling year-on-year, posting an increase of 211 percent.

Luzon, where more than 50 percent of the LTE sites were rolled out in the past six months, also posted a 5 percent revenue growth in the first quarter.

In the first three months of 2018, Smart installed 1,300 more LTE base stations across the country, raising the total count to over 10,000.

These base stations use various radio frequency bands, specifically the 700 MHz band for better coverage and indoor penetration, and the 1800 MHz and 2100 MHz bands for additional capacity.

The installation of multiple LTE base stations in existing cell sites paves the way for the activation of LTE-Advanced (LTE-A), which can deliver significantly faster mobile data services to customers.