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Why Red Mobile is the new umobile?

When rumors were going around that umobile is rebranding and will now be named Red Mobile, I asked around from sources and confirmed the closure of what have the first ad-supported mobile service in Asia.

red mobileOn April 28, 2008, PLDT disclosed to the SEC that it has bought CURE from Bobby Ongpin for a total amount of Php419.54 million and along with it, the allocation of 10 Mhz in the 2100 Mhz band.

Smart also disclosed it will be investing an additional Php210 Million which it says will operate independently, resulting to the new service called umobile. In essence, Smart got the 3G license and additional bandwidth while umobile will ride on Smart’s network.

According to a source close to someone inside umobile:

  • umobile will cease to exist. Operations of umobile have been merged with Smart and several people were let go due to the resulting redundancies.
  • Red Mobile will now be the new brand of the mobile service, much like how Addict Mobile was positioned by Smart for the niche crowd.
  • The ad-supported model is still in question. It might continue; it might not. But based on the re-branding, my guess is that it won’t go as originally planned. Otherwise, they would have just stuck to the brand and just consolidated operations.

What might have happened? It could be one of many things.

  • My source said, Smart was only interested in the 3G license. Maybe that’s why we’ve seen Smart 3G (Smart Bro) go up to 2Mbps recently.
  • umobile didn’t get much traction and might have missed their milestone of 10,000 subscribers by year-end.
  • There were also problems with interconnectivity with other telcos like Globe and Sun Cellular.
  • Companies didn’t bite the ad-supported model. This one is a bit curious since they set-up was really targeted. It’s also possible that a userbase of under 10,000 is too little to run an SMS-based campaign.

Will update this once I get additional info. I never even used my umobile credits. Still, for some, it was good while it lasted.

Disclosure: Smart is an advertiser on this blog.

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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.

62 Responses

  1. Avatar for jasper jasper says:

    paano ko makkha ang red mobile load menu sa smartload retailer……. kzi may nkita ko ng website na sa lhat ng smart retailers. ay get a red mobile load menu… pro hindi ko na alm kung anu website ang pnuntahan ko… help me plzzzzzzzz just email me at jovan_lintag****@****.*** thnx sa reply nyo po

  2. Avatar for kenshinflyer kenshinflyer says:

    If I’m not mistaken, after their purchase of CURE, SMART has two 3G allocations already. Nice move there, SMART.

  3. Avatar for satisfactiongirl satisfactiongirl says:

    Drop by the PLDT community page on getsatisfaction.com

    Here you can contribute & find consolidated rants or praise for PLDT services

  4. Avatar for Lym Relampagos Ongoy Lym Relampagos Ongoy says:

    Sun unli call/text is much better.

  5. Avatar for jredho jredho says:

    curious ako but i think i wont, or i might, will not, might too.. hehe

  6. Avatar for kat kat says:

    I didn’t get a call from umobile that they’ll be changed to Red Mobile. I was the one who called them and asked for the delivery of my sim, which hopefully would arrive this week.

    I guess I would not have known about Red Mobile if my best friend did not asked me his umobile number and told me the information that umobile was already gone.

    Anyway, thanks for this post, I now have an idea why umobile was gone.

  7. Avatar for freelancerage freelancerage says:

    i’m a load-and-forget type of person
    that’s why i use SUN Cellular

    kahit na anong marketing strategy gawin nila against Sun there are still catches towards how they network runs

    people doesn’t need to convert all of their phones into 3Gs?!! sheez..
    e panu kung naka 5110 pa ako…what’s the use hehe

    napaka-outdated how red mobile dish out Sun

    di na ganun kalala ang Sun ngayon, ok na ang signal nila, at least Sun took risk on the sales though they provide good service dahil dumami ang nagsubscribe

  8. Avatar for azile azile says:

    I received a call from umobile last month and ngayon ko lang natangap ung red mobile sim ko.

    miss ko na ang umobile.

    0938 ba prefix no. ng red mobile?
    mas cute ung umobile ksi 0999..hmm..

  9. Avatar for Soon-to-be-SUn-subscriber Soon-to-be-SUn-subscriber says:

    read about this red mobile thing…ganun pa din..you still heve to pay for the calls na gagawin mo…if sun cell can have unlimited calls bakit nila magawa….nothing will beat the SUN! I will soon be applying for a sun postpaid, because almost of my relatives, friends, ofcmates are already sun subscriber…unlimited is the best!! Sana magaya yan ng smart, globe…

  10. Avatar for Mark Mark says:

    Baka nga Parang sun ren yan. The Best paren ang GLOBE. para saakin.

  11. Avatar for heidee heidee says:

    how the red mobile gonna call me? :(

  12. Avatar for jason jason says:

    redmobile sucks, i miss umobile, umobile = elite, redmobile = jologs.

  13. Avatar for rhiggs rhiggs says:

    hmmmm.. talagang matinding marketing strategy ang ginagawa ng smart ngayon ah.. hehe.. pero siguradong tatapatan din yan ng suncellular at globe.. hintayin nalang natin ang kanya kanyang gimik ng smart, globe at suncellular… parang gasolina lang yan.. pababa ng pababa ang presyo.. ;)

  14. Avatar for Aldrich Aldrich says:

    I got the call from umobile last November 14. They committed that my Red Mobile sim which is preloaded with 200 pesos would arrive in between November 17-22, unfortunately, it did not arrive…

  15. Avatar for euan euan says:

    hay, sana continued pa rin un dati nilang service. like un rates. sobrang tipid pa naman dun..

    smartload retailer ako and they already updated my smartload menu with red mobile at the bottom of smartload menu.. i just don’t know if my smart load wallet can be used to reload red mobile or i need to load for it in different account.

    visit my site:
    http://silentfrequencies.blogspot.com/

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