Sun Cellular, the mobile unit of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT), says it continues to eclipse its rivals in the post-paid mobile segment and bullishly predicts to carry on the strong growth trend in the coming months. The Business Mirror cites Sun Cellular vice president Joel S Lumanlan as saying that it booked an 18% year-on-year rise in contract users in January-March to 1.81 million from 1.54 million in Q1 2014, outpacing rival Globe Telecom – in terms of growth – which added 180,000 net post-paid users (+9%) for a total of 2.27 million. The Sun official claimed that recent strong gains have been fuelled by ‘feature-packed plans’ which give end users added value to their subscription. ‘We are very confident that Sun will sustain this momentum of double-digit growth and outpace its direct competitor as we roll out highly competitive products that appeal to the wise spender in every Filipino,’ he added. ‘We should be able to sustain that and be able to grab market leadership by the end of this year.’
For its part though, Globe Telecom has rebutted Sun’s claim, with spokesman Dan Horan noting that its mobile arm controls 57.8% of the post-paid market segment in terms of revenues. ‘Clearly, post-paid mobile is a segment that Globe has long dominated over many years. Since 2012 Globe led the post-paid mobile business with a consistent revenue-market share of 58% on a two-player market. Our leadership in the post-paid [segment] is clearly unprecedented, underpinned by sustained growth in this segment and our breakthrough offers and innovations attracting new customers,’ Horan said. Globe booked post-paid revenues of PHP7.8 billion (USD173 million) in Q1 2015, compared to Sun Cellular’s PHP2.4 billion and PHP3.3 billion for PLDT’s other mobile unit Smart Communications. Moreover, Horan notes that Globe’s post-paid revenues increased by 11% year-on-year, versus 10% for Sun Cellular.