MANILA, The Philippines—Mobile-phone operators need lots of creativity to be a step ahead of the competition, according to Napoleon Nazareno, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Smart Communications, one of the Philippines’ leading cellular operators.
He said that Smart, for example, has launched 130 wireless services in the past two and a half years—or an average of at least one new service or a variant of an existing service every week.
These services ranged from breakthrough services, such as Smart Money, the award-winning electronic payments service linked to a mobile phone, to simple but engaging services, such as text quiz games and ring tones and logos from the latest hit films.
Most of these services are low-bandwidth applications that are simple, quick to make, easily deployed and affordable to customers. All of them run on short message service (SMS), better known as text messaging, which is popular among Filipino users, according to Nazareno.
He pointed out that what is important is that a player should keep a steady stream of services in the pipeline and create an environment where the mobile phone is used for a variety of purposes.
