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How much are telcos losing on FB & Twitter?

Last Christmas, the trend started with people shifting from sending out text messages on their phone to just using Facebook and Twitter to greet friends and loved ones.

We estimated as much as Php50 million could have been lost to Facebook just on Christmas eve.

Yugatech 728x90 Reno7 Series

This year, people have been using Facebook and Twitter way more than a year ago and it’s not just during Christmas or New Year’s day.

Counter-measures were made to offset that shift with telcos offering unlimited access to Facebook and many other social networking sites (for a daily flat rate between Php20 to Php25).

But the trend still remains — people send less SMS and using social networking sites like FB or Twitter as an alternative. How much the telcos are losing from this shift is unknown but maybe we can do some rough estimates.

Last time I checked, there are around 18 million accounts on Facebook from the Philippines. If we can figure out how much less an average FB user send text messages in favor of FB messages to greet people, that could one way of extrapolating the figure.

So, how much less have you bee texting and using FB or Twitter instead to send out greetings this holiday season?

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

53 Responses

  1. Avatar for realjarley realjarley says:

    there is no way that telcos are losing money. they are gaining more… due to fb and twitter..

  2. Avatar for Kenneth Kenneth says:

    One thing I can say about Smart is that they figured out a way to recoup some of the loses as a result of FB. At least in some cases. For example when you subscribe to Smart Unli 50 1day/unli internet surfing, if you fire off facebook in your browser, you get charged and additional 20pesos for accessing facebook, and you are automatically tagged/charged for unlifacebook20. niloko ka na nga ng smart, pinalilitaw ka pa na bobo, since you registered for unli surf already you are made to appear as having registered pa for unli facebook.

    Hi Yuga/Abe, just incase you know someone in Smart maybe they can fix this if it was an unintentinal bug to make more money.

    Thanks. Happy New Year!

  3. Avatar for LEEMAR LEEMAR says:

    i used all of the above.

    sms
    calls
    fb and twitter.

  4. Avatar for Derick Derick says:

    i’d say they lost a lot of potential sales to people who use sns/net to connect to family/friends, however, i dont think they’re losing money. As majority of the people here in the phils, are still using sms.

    And there are lots of additional sales from data subscription.

  5. Avatar for Iyan Sommerset Iyan Sommerset says:

    Well, I don’t have a Facebook or a Twitter account so that’s about that. :P Plus, I greet less than 5 people on holidays anyway. :P

  6. Avatar for Pao Pao says:

    I think I only SMSed one person this holiday season, and that’s because she doesn’t have a Twitter of Facebook account. The rest, I greeted through social network sites.

  7. Avatar for bong bong says:

    o btw here are 6 reasons why SMS beats IM.

    http://www.cellouts.net/2010/12/sore-thumbs%E2%80%93sms-vs-mobile-im/

  8. Avatar for bong bong says:

    haha. SMS will stay as long as you can think of. Not everybody has fb account. And to think telcos are losing money I don’t think so. Maintaining the SMS center is very cheap and resources are going through the signalling (CCS7) required to establish a call/data anyway. Investment have been recovered the first day the operator fire up the SMSC so operators are just squeezing every drop of your penny. CAPEX are spent to leverage in data boom in the near future. Next time you realize you are spending more data connection now than sms/call before. And guess to whom your money burn to? To the same operator you hate now.

  9. Avatar for thekiller thekiller says:

    sending sms is an old trend…
    social networking is a new trend…

    as you can see pcs get cheaper and more accessible thanks to those internet cafes and those who sell 2nd-hand pentium 4 computer…

  10. Avatar for Andre Andre says:

    question is how many users use their phone to access facebook or twitter?
    unlimited data charges is the way to go! :)

  11. Avatar for wala wala says:

    hindi nyo n problema yan…haha
    py new year

  12. Avatar for Bob Bob says:

    Consider this, if you are registered to Globe’s UNLITXT service, it would only cost you P20, and you can send unlimited SMS for 24 hours.
    And again, the trend still remains — people send less SMS and using social networking sites like FB or Twitter as an alternative.

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