Smart nominated anew for international award

Cellular leader Smart Communications Inc. has been nominated anew for an international award for its groundbreaking over-the-air prepaid loading service.

Called ‘Smart Buddy Load’, this world-first service was cited as one of four finalists for the ‘Best Mobile Application or Service - Consumer Market’. The other finalists are Mobilkom Austria, Shazam Entertainment and Ducont FZ-LLC of the United Arab Emirates,

In its announcement, the GSMA said the shortlist of finalists was drawn up after two rounds of judging by an international panel of telecom industry specialists that lasted more than a month.

The winner will be announced on Feb. 24, 2003, during the 3GSM World Congress of the GSM Association (GSMA) at Cannes. Awards will also be handed out in nine other categories ranging from best mobile terminal, handset or device, best network solution product to best TV commercial and best use of mobile for emergency situations.

This is the second time that Smart has been cited for its innovations in wireless services by the GSMA, the global trade association of GSM mobile operators and network systems manufacturers.

In 2001, Smart won the award for the most innovative wireless service for customers for its ‘Smart Money’, the world’s first cash card linked to a mobile phone.

Introduced in May 2003, Smart Load quickly became a huge commercial success and revolutionized the prepaid phone market in the Philippines.

Users of Smart Buddy, the prepaid phone service of Smart, shifted from phone cards to the very affordable over-the-air micro top ups offered by Smart Load. A similar service for Talk N Text, the prepaid service of Piltel, has also been a huge hit.

By end-September 2003, barely four months after its launch, the average daily Smart Load transactions had passed the one million mark.

Over-the-air loads accounted for over 40 percent of Smart’s top-up sales in the 3rd quarter. At that point over two-thirds of Smart Buddy and about three-fourths of Talk N Text users were reloading their phones electronically.

Smart Load helped the country’s largest cellphone company attract new subscribers and keep old ones. In the second and third quarters of 2003, Smart added over 1.6 million new subscribers. Meanwhile, churn rates declined.