ABS-CBN Corp.’s mobile unit will officially fold down its operations by end-November as the business was deemed “financially unsustainable,” a filing to the local stock exchange showed.
Starting this month, mobile virtual network operator ABS-CBNmobile will reduce its operations to the bare minimum, and by next week, its promotional offers will no longer be available to its subscribers.
A month after, all of its subscribers—prepaid, postpaid, and Sky mobile—will no longer be able to use their SIM cards. The company first announced in July that its network sharing agreement with Globe Telecom Inc. will no longer be renewed after five years of business, as it had difficulties in increasing the average revenue per user with its relatively thin subscriber base.
The company invested P3 billion to create the mobile brand through the network sharing agreement between Globe and ABS-CBN Converge.
The service was introduced in 2013 and gained traction two years after, when it reached 1.7 million subscribers with an average revenue per user of P65.
Company officials have repeatedly expressed confidence in the wireless business, saying it should have hit breakeven sometime in 2015.
However, it failed to stimulate usage within the network. Its main business proposition is, beyond calls and texts, subscribers will have access to content created by the television network.
By 2018 company officials have been quoted as saying they are trying to “contain losses” from the mobile business, cutting down losses to P560 million in 2017, from P600 million the year prior.
Globe and ABS-CBN are now looking for ways to create “new synergies to serve their customers better.”
These product synergies include the promotional bundling of ABS-CBN TVplus boxes with Globe At Home prepaid WiFi and the availability of ABS-CBN TVplus’s KBO (Kapamilya Box Office) and iWant TV over-the-top services to all Globe subscribers, which are already commercially available.