PLDT, Smart eye Japanese merchant fleet By Mary Ann Ll. Reyes Updated September 12, 2008 12:00 AM
Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) and its mobile subsidiary Smart Communications may finally gain a strong foothold in the lucrative Japanese merchant fleet industry, company officials said.
This developed after Japan’s leading mobile communications company NTT DoCoMo acquired for $10 million an 11.5-percent stake in Blue Ocean Wireless (BOW), an Irish company providing communication systems to the merchant maritime sector.
The acquisition is the latest joint endeavor between DoCoMo and its affiliate PLDT, including Smart, one of BOW’s shareholders.
The NTT group, which includes NTT DoCoMo and NTT Communications Corp., has a 20-percent stake in PLDT.
BOW provides connectivity for seafarers by setting up satellite antennas, base stations and conversion devices on vessels, which enable users to make and receive voice calls, send and receive SMS text messages using their existing handsets.
DoCoMo serves over 53 million customers, including 45 million people subscribing to FOMATM, launched as the world’s first 3G mobile service based on W-CDMA in 2001. It also offers a wide variety of leading-edge mobile multimedia services, including i-mode, the world’s most popular mobile e-mail/Internet service, used by 48 million people.
Just last year, Smart through its subsidiary SmartConnect Holding Pte Ltd. acquired a 32-percent interest in Dublin-based BOW for $ 16 million to allow the company to offer voice and text services to Filipino seafarers at an affordable price.
This allows seafarers to make and receive voice calls, send and receive SMS text messages and money and browse the Internet using their existing handsets.