"This is another act that the competition would find difficult to follow."
"This is another act that the competition would find difficult to follow."
In the fiercely competitive telecommunications business in the country, two key players have been persistently fighting it out for market supremacy—Smart Communications and Globe Telecoms.
It has been a toe-to-toe, eyeball-to-eyeball situation ever since. The unwritten rule is this: The guy who blinks first loses the draw.
Currently, the showdown takes an interesting twist as Smart turns 25 years old. To make the occasion more dramatic, Smart unveiled a cornucopia of giveaways to be distributed on a monthly basis, ranging from free load and data to smartphones. Topping the promo bonanza is a P25-million grand prize as the company’s gesture of giving back to valued customers for their unequivocal support over the past 25 years.
For this purpose, Smart, the wireless arm of PLDT, is putting up a one-man show—and loving it. At the end of the day, the silver jubilee promo dubbed “Amazing 25” may prove to be another stroke of genius. This is another act that the competition would find difficult to follow.
It may be said that Smart’s archrival didn’t only blink on this one—it was caught sleeping on the job.
Looking back, Smart has indeed been giving the competition a run for its money. Consider this:
Industry analytics firm Ookla, reputedly the world leader in internet testing and analysis, has cited PLDT and Smart for being the country’s fixed and mobile service providers during the first and second quarters of the current year, respectively.
Smart executives said they are on track in fulfilling their commitment to cover 90 percent of the country’s cities and towns with 3G/4G services by yearend.
Another industry pollster, OpenSignal, which specializes in studying the performances of telecom carriers in Asia, reported that Smart garnered a video experience score of 42.2, well ahead of the competition in the Philippines and well above the national average. Smart’s performance, OpenSignal concluded, is at par with video experience on US carriers.
OpenSignal’s video experience metric measures exactly what consumers are experiencing online video watching, using the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) approach for measuring video quality. It is derived from several underlying parameters based on real-time measurements of video streams from the world’s largest video content providers.
Meanwhile, to join the Amazing 25 promo, Smart, TNT and Sun subscribers must first complete the one-time registration: Simply dial *121#, choose “AMAZING 25” on the menu, and follow the steps to confirm the sign-up. Once registered, subscribers can start earning and accumulating raffle entries for a shot at winning amazing prizes.
All prepaid subscribers can earn raffle entries with every registration to select prepaid promos via retailers or text registration. As a bonus, subscribers using *121# to register to prepaid promos can earn more entries.
The select prepaid promos include Giga Surf, Giga Surf Plus, All Out Surf, and Game Time for Smart; Surf Saya, Gaan Surf, Panalo Combo, Panalo Data, Giga Surf and All Out Surf for TNT; and Sulit Surf Plus, Big Time Data, Non-Stop Surf, Giga Surf and All Out Surf for Sun.
On the other hand, all postpaid customers with active accounts that do not have outstanding balances can earn raffle entries by paying their bills in full and on time. Every P1,000 worth of payment is equivalent to 100 entries.
Postpaid customers who purchase select add-ons such as Giga Surf offers for Smart; and the Social Bundle 199, Chat Bundle 249, and Non-Stop 450 for Sun can also earn additional raffle entries.
All entries accumulated within the promo period are qualified for the grand draw of the P25 million cash prize.