Smart eyes to improve mobile messaging services with new i-mode rollout

Leading wireless carrier Smart Communications is aiming to improve its mobile services in the country with the rollout of the popular i-mode service in the country this month.
Smart, in a statement, said it will offer i-mode to local customers by March 15.
Smart and Japanese leading wireless carrier NTT DoCoMo has an existing mobile services agreement through their respective mother companies.
Smart said i-mode will be available initially to its Smart Gold subscribers.
Smart Gold subscribers will have access to i-mail, allowing them to send email via their handset for 1 peso per message under the i-mode service, the wireless carrier said.
i-mode is a very popular mobile email and Internet service first launched in Japan by mobile communications leader NTT DoCoMo in 1999.
According to Smart, the service is currently used by more than 47.8 million subscribers in Japan, and is also widely used to mobile subscribers in 15 other countries in Asia and Europe.
Smart also said it plans to make available more attractive and practical content and information to its i-mode user base in the Philippines.
"We understand and seek to cater to the rapidly evolving needs of today’s mobile phone owners. Smart provides not only cutting-edge connectivity to the biggest network in the country, it also offers access to world-class services, such as i-mode," Danilo J. Mojica, chief of Smart’s wireless consumer division, in a statement, said.
The i-mode rollout is also part of an agreement between NTT Group, the parent company of DoCoMo, and Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), the parent company of Smart.
In a statement earlier, NTT DoCoMo has disclosed that it has increased its stake in PLDT from 6.7 percent to 13.34 percent.
The Japanese firm last month said it acquired the additional 12.53 million shares, or an additional 6.64 percent stake in PLDT, for approximately 86.7 billion yen (US$ 760 million).
DoCoMo’s parent company, NTT Group, now has a total of 2.03 percent stake in the Philippine carrier’s outstanding common stock.
The increase in stake also enables DoCoMo to book the investment using the equity method and reclassify PLDT as an affiliate, DoCoMo, in the statement, said.
As part of the stake increase, DoCoMo said it expects to "strengthen" its business tie-up with Smart Communications.

by: Joel D. Pinaroc