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Telcos lost Millions to Facebook this Christmas

Q: Key Point 5: And in the spirit of the yuletide season, here's a...

And in the spirit of the yuletide season, here's a Merry Christmas to all readers and fans of YugaTech!

Abe Olandres December 25, 2009 · 1 min read

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Last year, I remember waking up on the 25th to hundreds of text messages with greetings of Merry Christmas. Today, I still get tons of greetings but this time it’s on Facebook and Twitter.

It’s mostly on Facebook with people posting greetings on their Walls or tagging photos with your name. It’s a shift in the communication trends — Facebook updates and Tweeting is replacing the good old SMS.

That could translate to millions or tens of millions of lost revenues for the telcos. Imagine if the 5 or so millions of Filipinos on Facebook skipped sending at least 10 SMS greetings each and posted greetings on FB instead. That’s an easy Php50 million in lost revenues on a single day. Good thing though is that there are no more network congestions around midnight, unlike before.

And in the spirit of the yuletide season, here’s a Merry Christmas to all readers and fans of YugaTech!

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Abe Olandres

Editor-in-chief

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.

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105 Comments

Coco Sugar · 16 years ago

Well, Globe reports that there was actually a 30% increase in their SMS traffic during the holidays. While Smart claims a moderate 10% increase in SMS while their voice calls doubled.

http://businessmirror.com.ph/home/companies/20915-telcos-report-hike-in-text-call-traffic-during-holiday-season.html

Conan Hughes · 16 years ago

Give it 5 years or so, our telcos (Globe, Smart…) will benefit from an already existing source of income: mobile internet. If people greet or pass messages on social networks such as Facebook these days, well telcos simply have to provide the means of accessing these websites. They’ve already started using USB modem sticks and expensive postpaid mobile plans. After 5 years or so, smartphones and mobile internet rates will be cheap enough and appealing to the masses.

Wizard · 16 years ago

Libre nga internet sa pinas. Ãœ

Patrick Oliveros · 16 years ago

Globe had an outage yesterday in QC (and some areas). There’s signal yet can’t send SMS and make outgoing calls.

Kinny · 16 years ago

I saved at least Php250 in text messages because I facebooked instead of texted. I even included ‘saved a bundle on text messaging’ after the Merry Christmas greeting. The only ones I called and texted? My SUN family and friends.

Pustiso · 16 years ago

Bawi din nila siguro sa Internet boss Abe. Sila din naman ang ISP. Happy holidays boss Abe.

wilmercamba · 16 years ago

This serves as a wake-up call to all philippine telcos that Filipinos will ALWAYS find the cheapest way to greet loved ones. Merry Christmas boss abe and more power Yugatech!

Nano · 16 years ago

“Itâ€™s probably because message sending failed starting almost midnightâ€¦” -roma

***ditto*** hehehe

Sanctuarian06 · 16 years ago

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas Sir Yuga, May Lord God, Bless you always!

karissa · 16 years ago

merry christmas Abe and to all!

well, it’s been happening yearly, text messages get stuck in “traffic” and a lot of mobiles can’t be reached.

As for me and my family, aside from those mobile problems, our phone’s dial tone went dead and our dsl connection was gone since Dec. 22!

For Pete’s sake! it was really annoying that it happened during the holiday season. We missed alot of relatives abroad because of that.
Since that day we were bombarding that “huge” telecom company” of complaints!
We finally got our dial tone back just this morning. But we still haven’t got the dsl connection back. It may take a couple days more they said.
And we will keep on bombarding them with complaints until they fix it.

It just so disappointing, they’re so fast when asking for payments. While their service sucks big time!

noemi · 16 years ago

merry christmas abe. Buti nga. better pa ang twitter and facebook.

Edward · 16 years ago

if there service is explicitly excellent maybe we don’t have to refer to FB, but consumer experienced worst, that’s why.

~Merry Christmas Yuga.

Edward · 16 years ago

if there service is explicitly excellent maybe we don’t have to refer to FB or twitter, but consumer experienced worst (technically speaking), that’s why.

Anyway, Merry Christmas yuga.

Edgar · 16 years ago

Wow, there was a reply from Smart. Let’s email our concerns, then. Thank you Smart.

Macky · 16 years ago

They lost millions but they are also the one who supplies internet to millions of people, so no revenue lost i guess.

Smartcares · 16 years ago

@RJ May we know if ur concerns persist? If so, please email us at IS****@smart.com.ph or follow us in Twitter @Smartcares.

Thank you.

Social Media Services
Smart Communications

Boy Mejorada · 16 years ago

husto gid, abe. my inbox contained less than a dozen christmas greetings on the morning of the 25th. and i didn’t have to spend hours responding to greetings or sending my own. isang greeting lang on my facebook wall, tapos na!

ken · 16 years ago

my two cents on it, if only telcos haven’t been so greedy with un-“intentionally” turding out the unlimited texting and calls people would have sent out more. crazy how facebook and twitter has taken of this year. fb predictable with the games and all but twitter i dont get. saw the thing years ago on sxsw and i still think its a stupid idea. anyways merry christmyths all!

Andre Marcelo-Tanner · 16 years ago

they dont deserve the money when the networks cant handle the traffic

melardenio · 16 years ago

Merry Christmas…. I think FB is better than Globe and smart……

I’m waiting for the Voice call feature of FB.. this one will really hurt the telcos even yahoo messenger..

I hope they also developed this feature..

Again Merry Christmas Abe…

Zirdaj · 16 years ago

bibihira nagtext sa akin ngaung pasko, pero sangkatutak na notifications nakuha ko sa FB, lol.

Merry xmas yugatech! ^^

vhictor · 16 years ago

that’s right yuga, I agree with you! Merry xmas all!

MannyV · 16 years ago

Merry Christmas, Yuga! :-) Even in the age of FB and Twitter, blog comment areas continue to thrive.

Calvin · 16 years ago

im not surprised. puro facebook na nga ang greetings. hehe. the game is changing.

Pusang Kulog · 16 years ago

Merry Christmas to all…

And as for the Telcos, in the end, it’s till a win/win situation for them since they also own the ISP businesses out there… Although i think their revenue would not be as good as last year as Yuga pointed out in this post…

Darius Vanguardia · 16 years ago

Merry Christmas!

Pao · 16 years ago

Merry Christmas! ^_^

AnyBits · 16 years ago

Merry Christmas!

Yes surely, SMS had lowered its rate due to online community site. Some used SMS for instant and traditional medium for greetings, but for general greetings the online community site is a good alternative.

Ric · 16 years ago

Come to think of it, it’s the same Telcos that run the internet here anyway so I don’t think they’d mind at all. They still get our money, one way or the other….

RJ · 16 years ago

hay naku Sir Abe, buti lang sa mga Telcos yan.. Christmas day pa naman ngayon tapos nawawalan ng Signal ang Smart!! Ggrrr!! Paskong-pasko nang-iinis sila!! Di na nga ako makapag-unli at regular load lang gamit ko di pa ako makapag-text! Tapos pag nag-try naman ako mag-net sa phone (mobile web) di rin maka-connect!! Jusmiyo! Mga ek-ek nila!!

paynjo · 16 years ago

I agree with this post. A lot of my friends in FB done the same. Merry Christmas Yuga!

marvin · 16 years ago

merry x mass too!

rsa1 · 16 years ago

Good for them. Philippines has got the most expensive data call rates in asia. Imagine a P6 to P7 call compared to 50cents of india.

goosebumps · 16 years ago

i still got tons of messages in my blackberry messenger..though still that does not translate to revenues for the telcos…

Yuya · 16 years ago

Merry Christmas din Sir Yuga.

Luge talga mga telcos ngaun dahil lahat nagunli kagabi, mapaglobe, sun o smart.
Ako globe, 25 pesos lang lagpas 100 na nagreet ko hehe

Edgar · 16 years ago

Merry Christmas, sir Abe! I bet there were a big number of people who posted on FB and Twitter using mobile connections. But yes, they still lost sizable revenues there.

Patrick · 16 years ago

I actually had my cellphone turned off the whole night last night. Haha!

Merry Christmas!

Bob · 16 years ago

i agree. every year, we’ve been having a hard time using their unlimited texts promo. these telcos confessed that they have to temporarily freeze the promos to avoid network congestion during the holidays.

as a result, more pinoys are just using the networking sites to extend their greetings.