Sun Cellular's subscribers stood at 1.7M at end-Feb

Posted: 9:41 AM | Mar. 07, 2005
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Digitel Mobile Philippines Inc said the number of subscribers to its Sun Cellular service had grown to 1.7 million at the end of February, with 200,000 new customers subscribing during that month.

The company said it hopes to end this year with a subscriber base of 3 million.

"We have about 1.7 million customers as of end-February. We are adding an average of 200,000 a month. We hope to hit 3 million this year," said William Pamintuan, senior vice-president of Digitel Mobile's parent, Digital Telecommunications Philippines Inc (Digitel).

He said Sun Cellular is gradually building up its customer base alongside the expansion of its network to be able to provide clients with better quality service.

"We are pacing-in the entry of new subscribers because our daily network build-up would expand our capacity to 3 million by the middle of the year," Pamintuan said.

Digitel will spend 200 million usd this year to expand its network coverage. It intends to increase its number of cell sites to 2,000 by the end of the year from more than 1,300.

This expansion will enable the company to serve as many as 6 million subscribers, instead of its present network capacity of 2 million.

Sun Cellular is the country's third and newest mobile phone service, having been launched only in March last year.

In October, the company began offering a competitive scale of charges which was the key to the firm's robust subscriber growth.

But its subscriber base still falls short of those of its competitors. Smart Communications Inc expects its end-2004 subscriber base to have reached 19 million, while Globe Telecom Inc had a subscriber base of 12.5 million at the end of last year.

Pamintuan said that to break even at the level of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, Sun Cellular will need to increase its subscriber base to at least 2.5 million.