Texting Capital No More???

Philippines have gained the title for being the texting capital of the world for more than five years. China is the country’s great competitor for having the most number of cell phone subscribers. Based on various estimates, last year China has taken the crown already by having a record of 500 billion text messages sent. While the Philippines only garnered 100 billion text messages sent. However, if we try to figure things out, Philippines is still the leader in texting. In 1.4 billion of the Chinese population, there are only about 350 text messages sent for every people. While with the 80 million Filipinos, there are 1,250 text messages sent for each individual. It’s quite a big difference in terms of per capita estimation. Another thing, in terms of the phone subscription, Philippines also grab the lead. We already have 50 million cell phone subscribers here while they have an overwhelming 550 million subscriber in China. This means that a typical Filipino subscriber sent 2,000 text messages a year while a Chinese subscriber only sends a probable 900 text messages a year. That makes us still on the top in terms of mobile subscription.

Apparently, due to the world wide economic difficulty which is really felt here in the Philippines, the Filipinos lately starts spending less in their mobile phones. The prices of the basic good are continuously going high so, they find it hard anymore to allocate their budget in things that are not that necessary anymore. According to the telecommunication companies in the Philippines their monthly average revenue per unit or ARPU has declined into several digits in the past few months this year. Even if they tend to low their services cost still, the basic commodities are the one that should be taken into consideration first.

From the time that cell phones have reached the land of Juan dela Cruz, everybody has become addicted to it. The cell phone crazy have invaded the 7,107 land of the Philippines including the “grassroots” people or what we called the “masa”. Even the government has been taken issues regarding the use of mobile phones in a serious manner. In the recent State of the Nation Address of the President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the crowd grew livelier as the she declared that the price of text messaging in the country will be lessen from 1.00 peso to 0.50 centavos. What else can I say? That’s very Pinoy indeed…

Although communication is still important among the Filipinos, this time they have been just a lot more responsible within their expenses. Anyway, we should not focus ourselves from becoming an IT (information technology) hub in Asia. There are a lot of more ‘sensible’ things that we should be paying attention of rather than becoming the texting capital of the world.

Images from Flickr.com