Smart Load

The Launch of Smart Load

Smart Communications, Philippines based telecom (wireless) provider operates in the country with high poverty rate. Over 50% of Philippines populations live below poverty line.

An additional obstacle for a telecom operator in Philippines resides in fact that over 65% of the population lives in rural areas and is spread across over 7.000 islands comprising the country. These facts, coupled with traditional view at the time that mobile phones are used mainly by people who can afford it, meaning lower middle income families and wealthier (A, B and C segments as per Philippines socioeconomic breakdown), threatened to limit growth potential for the company substantially, leaving out of scope more than 50% of the population (D&E segments).

The obstacles to overcome in order to extend the area for growth potential to D&E segments of the population included a mission considered to be next to impossible related to cost of supply chain serving remote and rural areas using existing prepaid cards. Additionally, the potential retailers in these low income areas would not be easy to find if possible at all as most of trade was done through small shops (Sari-Sari) that would not be financially able to carry the cost of holding stock of prepaid cards. The Smart Communications needed an innovative approach that would overcome all of these obstacles.

In order to make the service Available to the large population living below poverty line Smart developed over-the-air payment system that required start up investment for interested small retailers as low as 7.16 USD in addition to GSM handset. By setting up this system Smart was able to attract hundreds of thousands small retailers in a very short period of time working for an attractive commission of 15%, enabling retailers to earn from selling Smart service same as much as from selling other goods from the store. The whole purchasing process both from Smart to its retailers as well as from...