DITO expects to hit 70% coverage this month
DITO TELECOMMUNITY Corp. said on Tuesday that it expects to reach 70% population coverage this month, allowing it to increase its subscriber base.
The target coverage is part of the company’s mandate stipulated in the certificate of public convenience and necessity issued by the National Telecommunications Commission in 2019.
“Penetrating more areas means that we capture more share in the market,” DITO Chief Administrative Officer Adel A. Tamano said in a statement.
With more competition, telecommunications companies race to deliver better services to their customers, he noted.
The company has allocated P50 billion for its expansion this year, as it hopes to be commercially available in 840 areas in the country by the end of the year.
DITO said it now has more than nine million active subscribers. It hopes to have a total of 12 million users by December. As of March 2022, its rivals PLDT, Inc.’s Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart and TNT) had 70.3 million subscribers, while Globe Telecom, Inc. had 87.4 million mobile subscribers.
Citing data from global monitoring firm Ookla, DITO said it has already “made a dent in the dominance of its main competitors.”
“Before the third telco player’s commercial launch, the Philippines’ 4G median download speeds only stood at 11.15 megabits per second (Mbps) in the first quarter of 2021,” it said.
“The figure subsequently improved to 15.53 Mbps in the first three months of 2022, almost a year after DITO started its operations,” it added.
Hastings Holdings, Inc., a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., has a majority stake in BusinessWorld through the Philippine Star Group, which it controls. — Arjay L. Balinbin
