iPhone 5 war: the battle for postpaid

Katherine Visconti

This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

The iPhone 5 is in the Philippines and in separate launch events the eve of December 14, both Globe and Smart welcome what Apple calls "the biggest thing to happen to the iPhone since the iPhone"

MANILA, Philippines – Globe and Smart face off again.

They throw launch parties for the iPhone 5 on the same night.

The events are low key.

Both say it’s not the party but the sales that matter.

What we wanted to do this year was to make it a big event. But we want people to buy the iPhone 5.  Last year it was more the event than the sales.
NOEL LORENZANA
SMART, WIRELESS CONSUMER DIVISION HEAD

Since Smart started carrying the iPhone last year, rivalry has been fierce.

It’s a very, very intense competition and that means benefit for customers.
PETER BITHOS
GLOBE, HEAD OF CONSUMER BUSINESS

Both brands want to appeal to postpaid consumers, a small but affluent demographic.

95% is prepaid yet that 5% of our sims (that are postpaid) generated 32% of our total mobile revenues, that’s a staggering difference between postpaid and prepaid.

GIL B. GENIO
GLOBE, INTERNATIONAL AND BUSINESS MARKETS

Globe is traditionally strong with postpaid users and wants to keep them.

At the launch, Globe rewarded longtime consumers with giveaways handing out its first iPhone 5 to a postpaid plan user who’s been with the telco for 18 years.

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, I’ve never had a problem to drive me away from the Globe service.  
LEO DOMINGUEZ
GLOBE USER

At the same time, Smart is luring customers in with slightly lower priced iPhone 5s and will continue the assault with inexpensive android devices.

For a market like ours I think the android will still occupy a very prominent place. The IOS platform tends to be available on higher price levels. But the nice thing is smart is active on all of those levels.
RAMON ISBERTO
SMART SPOKESPERSON

The Philippines has the fastest smartphone growth in Southeast Asia.

With the top two brands busy slugging it out there seems to be only one clear winner – the customer.

Katherine Visconti, Rappler Manila. – Rappler.com

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