Smart, PLDT to bundle MPIC’s mWell in offerings
PANGILINAN-led PLDT Inc. and Smart Communications, Inc. will be backing up the health technology platform of Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) through their offerings.
“Now, Smart will be bundling mWell [too] because one of the priorities of our administration now, given the inputs from the Filipino population, is that their first concern is really health. PLDT and Smart are really mindful of that,” MPIC Chief Finance Officer and Chief Sustainability Officer June Cheryl A. Cabal-Revilla said on the sidelines of the mWell application’s launch.
The mWell health technology platform was developed by MPIC subsidiary Metro Pacific Health Tech Corp. Among its offerings are telemedicine, health and wellness programs, and e-commerce.
“We’re in discussions with Smart and they’re supposed to come up with something on the postpaid before the end of the year and then prepaid shortly after that,” Ms. Cabal-Revilla said.
She also mentioned that PLDT will introduce telephone consultations that will allow subscribers to consult with a doctor through PLDT landlines.
“The PLDT offer is not just going to be a special plan for the doctors. They will also put the health feature and function in their subscription or in their offering,” she said, adding that the thrust of PLDT Home is “what is important to the family.”
mWell’s doctors, through the application’s partnership with PLDT, will be provided a special internet package of P1,499 a month at 1,000 megabits per second speed.
On Friday, MPIC held the first press event of its integrated health application after its first digital launch in July 2021.
Ms. Cabal-Revilla said that the application will be available globally even to migrant workers or overseas Filipino workers.
According to MPIC Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan, mWell is part of the group’s overall strategy for completing the health ecosystem for Filipinos. He said there is still more room to improve the app.
“There’s a lot more work that needs to be done in terms of improving the app and propagating it to a greater number of Filipinos. Right now, we have more than 800,000 subscribers on the app and I think by year-end we’ll have at least a million subscribers,” Mr. Pangilinan told reporters on the sidelines of the event.
MPIC is one of three Philippine subsidiaries of First Pacific, the others being PLDT and Philex Mining Corp. Hastings Holdings, Inc., a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., maintains an interest in BusinessWorld through the Philippine Star Group. — Justine Irish DP. Tabile
