MANILA, (AFP) - Philippine carriers Smart Communications and Globe Telecom lead telcos worldwide in reaping revenues from cellular data transfers, according to a report in Business World.
First quarter revenue from data transfer for Smart Communications accounted for 41 percent of its profits while Globe Telecom reaped 38 percent from the service, the newspaper report said, citing information from EMCWorld Cellular Data.
Japan's NTTDoCoMo trailed in third spot with data transfer contributing 26 percent of its revenues.
Philippine mobile carriers topped the list of 32 operators worldwide whose revenues from data exceeded 15 percent, the report said.
Other carriers on the list were KDDI and Vodafone of Japan, O2 in Ireland, the United Kingdom and Germany, and Telekoms in Indonesia.
EMCWorld also said that of the 50 top operators in data revenue, 90 percent use the GSM technology for data transfer.
While GSM is widely used and 3G is becoming more available, Ling said these technologies will not overtake voice services.
Mobile phone users in the Philippines have adopted the short messaging system feature, known as "texting", because it is a cheaper mode of communication, pegged at 50 centavos to one peso (about two US cents) per message.
Smart had 16 million subscribers, while Globe had 10.5 million subscribers as of June, the report said. The local telecom sector transfers an average 200 million messages a day.