Last year, I remember waking up on the 25th to hundreds of text messages with greetings of Merry Christmas. Today, I still get tons of greetings but this time it’s on Facebook and Twitter.

It’s mostly on Facebook with people posting greetings on their Walls or tagging photos with your name. It’s a shift in the communication trends — Facebook updates and Tweeting is replacing the good old SMS.

That could translate to millions or tens of millions of lost revenues for the telcos. Imagine if the 5 or so millions of Filipinos on Facebook skipped sending at least 10 SMS greetings each and posted greetings on FB instead. That’s an easy Php50 million in lost revenues on a single day. Good thing though is that there are no more network congestions around midnight, unlike before.

This will happen again in New Year's eve and in many other holidays to come.

Just realized that since all the telecom players (Sun, Smart and Globe) are now offering unlimited 3G internet and subsequently lowering the prices down, 3G is officially cheaper than DSL.

Let’s look at how much a 1Mbps to 3Mbps residential DSL costs nowadays:

PLDT myDSL 2Mbps: Php1,995 (DSL only)

Globe Broadband 2Mbps: Php1,995 (DSL w/ free Landline)

Bayan DSL 1.5Mbps: Php1,699

Sky Broadband 2Mbps: Php1,999

From the list above, we can see that all of the current DSL offerings that’s “up to 2.0Mbps” have prices ranging from Php1,699 to Php1,999. That should give us what’s the current market prices that’s acceptable to broadband consumers.

Now let’s look at a rundown of unlimited mobile 3G by the networks and see if the prices are cheaper or not:

Sun Wireless Broadband 2Mbps – Php799

SmartBro Plug-It 2Mbps – Php999

Globe Tattoo 2Mbps – Php1,200

It’s pretty obvious now — 3G internet is now way cheaper than DSL. Remember when unlimited 3G used to be Php3,000 per month? That’s a price cut of 60% in 2 years. It doesn’t even consider the fact that 3G speeds used to be 384Kbps. I’d say 3G internet has become 92% cheaper if we take speed and price considerations into account.

Even at current rates, a 2Mbps unlimited 3G subscription is 60% cheaper than an unlimited 2Mbps DSL line. The only reason why people still think it’s expensive is that they don’t use 3G internet as much as they do with DSL.

When I saw this hi-def video of the Serendra car explosion yesterday, I thought this is the future of citizen journalism -- live or almost live video broadcast of incidents as they happen, taken by ordinary people.

Still images are no longer enough. People want live video -- high definition video. Take for example these series of footages taken by one of the witnesses in yesterday's incident at Serendra / Boni High Street.







Technology drives citizens journalism. We need more mobile phones with HD video recording, more portables devices like the Flip MinoHD to be more affordable, and convergent devices like the iPod Nano Video to be more connected over-the-air and a much faster/better 3G connections for live "by the minute" coverage.

Every December, for the last two years, I facilitate a 2-week training/workshop in Germany on new media and digital communications. We have participants from over two dozen countries around the world attending this workshop and sharing their experiences from their respective regions.

One of the primary goals of this workshop, hosted by the German NGO (Freidrich Naumann Stiftung), is to enable and empower individuals and organizations by using the internet and technology to democratize and facilitate freedom of speech and expression especially in conservative and restrictive societies.



In this day and age, I am still surprised that a lot of what we enjoyed is unheard of or restricted in other countries.

In Pakistan, BlogSpot.com is blocked by the government because of one blog that supposedly mocks their religion. Flickr is also blocked in Saudi Arabia as it’s allegedly a source of pornographic content. In Syria, Facebook is also blocked.

A Palestinian delegate told me she read the news about the Israeli government passing a law specifically for Google to prevent it from making high-resolution satellite photos to use in Google Maps.

And we all know about the Great Firewall of China that censors and blocks certain websites and search results for specific keywords.

In Asian countries such as Singapore and Malaysia, bloggers get imprisoned for criticizing people in government (made under the guise of inciting to sedition and the likes).



Most of the reasons behind these restrictions are attributed to religion or national security. It’s even more effective in countries where the government owns or has direct control of telcos or Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

Despite this obstacles, the internet remains as the most accessible alternative medium of communication to reach an audience and as such poses a great promise in promoting free expression. All that is needed is to educated and enable regular folks about its potential. It may take some time for other countries but it has already proven its worth in other regions, especially in the west.

The year 2008 will be remembered in the mobile industry as the year when everyone started shifting from the plain keypads to the touch screen. Everybody is coming out with their own version of a keyboard-less mobile phone after seeing the great success Apple had with the iPhone. Let's look at the top contenders from each manufacturer and see how they fair.

Apple iPhone 3G. Apple may have started it all. We will eventually get into touch screen someday but Apple pushed everybody else to revolutionize how we use our mobile phones. It’s major advantage was that it was able to develop their own device with their own platform. This seamless integration allowed them to maximize the phone’s usability. However, the biggest leap Apple had was the introduction of the App Store in their ecosystem. Thousands of games and applications, both free and paid, enables people to creatively maximize the productivity and add a fun factor of using the iPhone. Costs at least Php38k and locks you in with a single provider.



Samsung Omnia (SGH i900). Samsung’ flagship touch screen phone has a 3.5” display screen and has an 8GB and 16GB capacity. Runs the latest Windows Mobile platform, the Omnia gives people access to hundreds of applications developed for WinMo devices. Samsung has since dropped the price but when it first came out it was Php34k (8GB) and Php38k (16GB).

Sony Ericsson XPeria X1. Sony Ericsson went ahead and introduced a touchscreen with a horizontal slide-out keyboard. The size of the phone still resembles the candy-bar form factor so the screen is a little small at only 3 inches. Also ran Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, Sony Ericsson added their own UI panel on top of the platform which users can customize. Only been out for about 2 weeks and costs Php42,500.

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. Not yet locally available but should be out by January of 2009, Nokia introduced their first full touchscreen phone that includes not only a regular stylus but also a pluck (same as the one used for guitars) to navigate the menus. No local pricing available but estimates put it at around Php20,000.

HTC Touch HD. HTC’s full touchscreen phone is the one that has the biggest screen of the pack at 3.8 inches. The company also boasts that the phone supports hi-def video playback to maximize the effect of the large screen real-estate. You'll need an microSD card for more storage though and it's the most expensive of the whole pack -– Php55,900.

LG KP500 Cookie. The LG Cookie may be the one with least features in the pack but LG’s approach was to reach a market that could not afford the high price tags of the rest but still are looking into touch screen phones. At Php11,900, it costs at least 1/3 (or even 1/4) of the price of the others which makes it attractive to a most consumers. Gets you the best bargain for a touchscreen phone at just under Php12,000.

Everyone in the pack, except for the LG Cookie, are feature-packed – WiFi capability, 3G/HSDPA connectivity, GPS and A-GPS support. Storage capacity will vary between 8Gb and 16Gb while others may require you to stick in a memory card.

Your choice will eventually depend on how much budget you have and which platform you are most comfortable with. the biggest challenge will be getting used to the virtual keyboard so check out each unit and see how easily you can adapt to the new feature and which one suits you best.

Well, at least in the Philippines. A new bill has been submitted to the Senate is entitled "Anti-Obscenity and Pornography Act of 2008" (Senate Bill No. 2464). Introduced by Sen. Manny Villar, the proposed bill defines obscenity and pornography as well as prescribing punitive fines and imprisonment to those convicted. Here's an excerpt of the bill:

a) “Obscene” refers to anything that is indecent or offensive or contrary to good customs or religious beliefs, principles or doctrines, or tends to corrupt or deprave the human mind, or is calculated to excite impure thoughts or arouse prurient interest, or violates the proprieties of language and human behavior, regardless of the motive of the producer, printer, publisher, writer, importer,seller, distributor or exhibitor such as, but not limited to:

(1) showing, depicting or describing sexual acts;
(2) showing, depicting or describing human sexual organs or the female breasts;
(3) showing, depicting or describing completely nude human bodies
(4) describing erotic reactions, feelings or experiences on sexual acts or;
(5) performing live sexual acts of whatever form.

(b) “Pornographic or pornography” refers to objects or subjects of film, television shows, photography, illustrations, music, games, paintings, drawings, illustrations, advertisements, writings, literature or narratives, contained in any format, whether audio or visual, still or moving pictures, in all forms of film, print, electronic, outdoor or broadcast mass media, or whatever future technologies to be developed, which are calculated to excite, stimulate or arouse impure thoughts and prurient interest, regardless of the motive of the author thereof.

The full copy of the bill can be downloaded here.

With that definition, I can only think of hundreds of sites, magazines, shows and games that could be adversely be affected once this becomes enacted.

• All those kids in Friendster posing nude pictures of themselves and their partners.


• Chatrooms and Yahoogroups that caters to the adult group.


• Blogs and forums publishing photos of nude models, etc.


• People on YouTube uploading video clips of obscene acts.


• Magazines with sexy bikini-clad models acting out a sexually-stimulating poses.


• Dating sites that promotes sex eyeballs (SEB)

How about the tabloids? The Pay per View? And so many others.

It would surprise the author of this bill to know that the Philippines is ranked #8 in worldwide porn revenues with about $1 billion in annual sales.

Here are some more interesting figures about the pron industry:

• Every second - $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography


• Every second - 28,258 Internet users are viewing pornography


• Every second - 372 Internet users are typing adult search terms into search engines


• 4.2 million porn websites (12% of total websites)


• 68 million porn-related search requests daily (25% of total search engine requests)


• 1.5 billion porn-related downloads a month from P2P networks (35% of all downloads)


• 42.7% of internet users have viewed porn online

The debate though would revolve around the definition, personal taste, and where to draw the line between pornography and art. But it's a debate that we've already been talking about for decades.

- Abe Olandres / YugaTech

When Globe Telecom finally announced that August 22 is the release date of the iPhone 3G in the Philippines, a lot of people were excited. That's until they saw the pricing plans.

Since then, Globe has announced a reduced rate for the prepaid kits and additional allocation for the postpaid plans.



For the 8GB model, a contract-free phonekit costs Php37,599 and for the 16GB model, it's Php43,799 (includes a Php1,000 load credit spread for 5 months). These prices are on the high-end side of the current line-up in the mobile market along with other competitors such as the Samsung i900 Omnia (SRP for 8GB is Php34,000) and the HTC Touch Diamond (Php41,000).

For Globe Postpaid plans, the lowest plan is Php1,599/month plus an upfront fee of Php15,100 (complete pricing plans here). Still, it seems like a lot of people are saying that the plans are expensive, especially the prepaid phonekit (even after Globe announced a reduction of about Php4,500 from the original listed price). I also compiled a list of 18 countries here and their respective pricing plans.

For one thing, most people think the right price should be somewhere in the vicinity of $199 the erstwhile CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs, promised. What they failed to consider was that the price will be heavily subsidized by the telcos.

Apple did the smart move in marketing the iPhone 3G worldwide as twice as fast at half the price. So, when the real unlocked price of the iPhone came out, it was the telco in each of the respective countries did the disappointing announcement. In the end, the blame has shifted from Apple to the telcos when, in fact, it was Apple who initially made the absurd $199 promise.

Had Steve Jobs revealed the real unlocked price of the iPhone 3G in his first announcement back in January, consumers would not have been frustrated after realizing the actual cost of getting a unit.

Now that you know the actual price, would you still buy an iPhone 3G?


- Abe Olandres / YugaTech

One of the shocking announcements made by Pres. Macapagal Arroyo in her 8th State of the Nation Address (SONA) was the slashing of text messages (SMS) rates down to half. That's down to 50 centavos and GMA proudly claims she was able to convince all the telcos to do so.

It seems like a miracle -- mobile telcos giving up billions of their revenues just in time for Arroyo to make the good news in her SONA. There must be something in return for this.

Well, I just learned that the announcement was kind of a dud. Why? Well, it's not a permanent price cut but a promo. Yes, just a promo. The president forgot to mention this was just a promo and the 50-cent cut will go back to the normal 1 Peso by October. The promo starts July 28, 2008.

I'm not a bit impressed. We all know that telcos are already doing monthly or quarterly promos -- some doing 100 SMS for just Php10 or Php20 a load.

We'll just have to see come October; once telcos realize how much money they're losing from the promo. Besides, they're public companies anyway, so we'd be able to see numbers once they've publish their financial reports.

Read more about my take on the SMS debate from my previous entry: "There was a time when SMS was free."

Nowadays, mobile internet (via GPRS, 3G or HSDPA) is pretty common, widely available and reasonably affordable. Most of the cellphone companies (Smart 3G, Globe Visibility, Sun Cellular 3G) have been offering them for several years now. Likewise, there have been a number of cheap 3G-capable phones in the market ranging from LG to Nokia. More and more people are also starting to access and consume web content thru their mobile phones.

Let me share top 5 apps that you can use to bring the web to your mobile phone:

Yahoo! Go (mobile.yahoo.com/go). Yahoo! Go puts the power of the internet into your pocket. It has gone a long way since the first version and it integrates your favorite Yahoo! destinations into a single central access -- Flickr for Mobile, Yahoo! Mail, Maps, Search, Weather and News feeds.

Fring (fring.com). Fring is basically a VOIP and IM client which allows you to make calls using your cellphone's internet connection. That way, you don't need to make expensive international long distance calls to your relatives and love ones abroad. This is bets for OFWs who want to save on their phone bills. Your phone's net connection could be via 3G or WiFi. Fring also allows you to chat with friends or contacts on Skype, MSN, YM, Google Talk, AIM and ICQ. There's also Gizmo and Skype on the same category.

Mobile GMail (www.google.com/mobile/gmail). If you're using GMail, you will also love using GMail for Mobile and access your emails right in your phone. If you have multiple email accounts, you can even use GMail to manage all of them into one account. Click here on a tutorial on how to consolidate all your email accounts into GMail.

Opera Mobile (operamini.com). If you don't like the browser that came built-in with your mobile phone, you'll love Opera Mini. It's fast, it's light and works just fine. The best (free) mobile browser out there. If you have some money to spend ($25), you can also get its big brother - Opera Mobile.

YouTube Mobile (m.youtube.com). Watch your favorite YouTube videos in your phone. It provides mobile-friendly streaming of videos (so it streams faster) and allows you to upload your own recorded videos directly from your phone to your YouTube account.

There are many other free mobile apps/services you can download or use with your phone (Google Maps for Mobile, MSN Live Mobile, Skype Mobile, Netvibes Mobile, etc.). It depends which web versions of these services you frequently use and more often, they have mobile versions as well.

Abe Olandres / YugaTech

About 10 years ago, SMS (short message service or more commonly called texting) was practically free. Everyone can send as many text messages as they want all day, every day and it won’t cost them an extra cent.

Of course, there were only a few people who had cell phones then and mostly the big old one-liner soapbar-type ones. Back then, owning a mobile phone was a luxury (not much of a necessity yet) and a single SIM card would cost you just under Php1,000.
Today, a SIM card can be bought for as low as Php50 while others are practically given away. Phone owners have also grown to as much as 45 Million – almost half the total population on the Philippines. Mobile phones abound at cheap prices and making phone calls are also cheaper.

Despite the trend, only one telco service has defied the affordability scale – and that’s the SMS.

From free unlimited text, telcos started charging per message sent. As a bonus, a airtime credit reloads are given free bulk SMS quotas. Then, they reduced the free credits until there was none.

Text messaging grew exponentially. The Philippines was tagged the SMS Capital of the World with over 1 Billion text messages sent every day across all networks. Text messaging has become the golden money machine. Telcos are earning more than fifty percent (50%) of their wireless services revenues from SMS.

Now that the telcos are making bucket-loads of money, some sector and the government are pressuring the cellphone companies to make SMS free again.

It’s a debatable issue actually. Is it still possible for telcos to offer SMS for free? I guess so, yes. But that’s without unwanted consequences. A loss in revenue from SMS will make it harder for them to upgrade their network when it is needed. Likewise, offering unlimited free text messaging will undoubtedly overload the capacity of the network. Too much usage, limited network -- we all know how it looks like – totally unreliable service. That’s not a nice scenario either.

What I think would be a fair demand is to ask the telcos for accountability and transparency – (1) remove the 60 day expiration on load credits, (2) provide online on-demand usage logs of all voice and data usage, (3) and remove/reduce inter-connection charges between networks.

I think we deserve proper customer service for what we all pay for. Service providers can start by taking accountability and being transparent to its customers.

- Abe Olandres / YugaTech

A lot of people have been asking me whether the Internet Café business is still a good investment in the Philippines. It was a lucrative business back in the early 2000 when broadband connectivity was scarce and unlimited dial-up service still costs Php5,000 a month.

Today, the net café business has even expanded to online gaming to which most net café owners admit rakes in the bigger share of their monthly revenues. Then, there’s the local chain of net cafes like Netopia and Station 168 that’s been mushrooming all over the country.

So it looks like putting up an internet café is still a viable business. But, and that’s a big BUT, take into consideration several factors that will spell the success or failure of your business venture. Let me point out some of them here:

Location. Just like in any other kind of business, location is one of the key ingredients. It determines how much foot traffic your business will get. Areas like schools and universities will have a constant flow potential customers. Same goes with malls, open markets, and junctions that are virtually swarming with people 24/7. There are some that have had relative success operating in closed communities but others eventually suffer from the laws of supply and demand.

Capitalization. Many aspiring entrepreneurs think running a net café is not that expensive but a solid capital will dictate your operating capacity. Putting up 3 or 5 PC stations will not cut it anymore. A friend of mine who’s been running a net café for over 3 years now tells me you will need more than 10 stations in order to get good returns. You capital should also consider depreciation, repairs and maintenance.

Competition. It always amazes me whenever I see rows and rows of net cafes lined in a certain street. It’s a sure sign of impending failure. I’d bet half of them will shut down in less than a year. I think the biggest challenge in the net café industry is rabid competition. It’s all about the price-wars. Rates used to be in the 40’s to 50 pesos. Now, you can even find net café shops offering as low as Php8 per hour. In Davao City, they go as low as Php4/hour during off peak. With the rising power rates (close to Php10 per KWHr), there’s no way your business will survive the price battle. Choose a location or area where there are net café associations that will regulate the pricing. Otherwise, new players will just eat up the fixed market share. More supply, fixed demand – go figure.

The three points I mentioned above are the most important factors to consider if you’re considering in putting up a net café shop in your area. There are other lesser things to worry about like the speed and quality of your PCs or the consistency of broadband connectivity in your area but these can be remedied as long as you have enough capitalization or operating funds.

Five years ago, a successful net café business can get their return of investment (ROI) in 6 to 12 months. Today, you’d be lucky if you could recuperate all your capital in less than 2 years. But if you play your cards right, you might still make a killing -- that's until a couple more players come around.

- Abe Olandres / YugaTech

Ever since the controversy of the National Broadband Network Project (NBN-ZTE) broke out, there hasn't been any independent study on whether the deal with the Chinese contractor is actually over-priced or not. All we know is that there’s something really fishy about it.

About two months ago, after downloading a copy of the Bill of Quantities which is an annex to the contract, I sifted thru the pages and pages of itemized pricing for materials, softwares and manpower. I earlier wrote about my initial observations here.

Included in the contract is the proposed plan on how the network will be implemented. I graphed a simple diagram on how it will look like:



Essentially, several modes of connectivity will be utilized to roll-out the network – WiMax, Satellite, and Commercial Networks. The Bill of Quantities lists down how much goes to what:

These are the Equipment Cost:

Transmission Backbone Equipment: $47,649,037
Regional WiMax System: $82,077,545
IP Backbone Equipment: $15,510,251
VoIP System: $15,175,887
DC/NOC Equipment: $8,977,882
Information Security system: $6,743,012
Monitor & Environment Equipment: $3,532,877
Uniform NMS: $2,143,540
DC Power & Diesel Generator: $11,505,187

Sub-Total: $194,051,628

And these are the breakdown of Services Cost:

Site Prep & Civil Works: $48,571,040
System Implementation & Engineering: $20,607,490
Site Engineering for Remote Office Site: $28,686,840
Service for IDC Construction & Integration: $8,287,281
Joint Project Management Office: $5,995,000
Link Charges: $6,498,000
Training: $1,948,505
Managed Services: $14,875,507

Sub-Total: $135,429,662

The number don’t mean much because most of us would never really know if these prices are within normal market levels. Still, as the saying goes, the devil is in the details.

Digging deeper into the documents, there are some very familiar items we can actually make some reasonable comparison with. The equipments and their prices are as follows:

Office Printer : 1 set @ $804.20
Desktop Computer : 1 set @ $2,055.94
Laptop Computer : 1 set @ $3,440.56
Basic E1 Tester : 5 units @ $7,128.41
MS SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition : 1 CPU License @ $6,797.73

Here lies the question -- are these items overpriced? A set of office printer was listed at ~Php41,000 (when ZTE sent in their unsolicited proposal on September 2006, the Peso-Dollar exchange rate was still hovering around 51:1) and a desktop computer costs ~Php105,000. The laptop, on the other hand, was priced at around Php175,000.

While we can say that market prices for these items still falls within an acceptable range (although in the upper limit), others might argue that they obviously looked overpriced. In my opinion, at least the printer, laptop and PC can be had for half the quoted price. And, if those items were easily padded, one can only imagine how much the other more expensive equipments went for.

- Abe Olandres / YugaTech

In the last six months, the market for cheap ultraportable laptops have been dominated by the Asus Eee PC. It was a great move by the Taiwan manufacturer and became an instant hit primarily because of the retail price. Before that, the smaller the laptop the pricier it becomes.

The Asus Eee PC 4G was originally pegged at $199 but ended up being sold for Php19,000+ in the Philippines – yet people kept on buying them like hot cakes. This unit runs on an Intel Celeron 900MHz, has a 7-inch screen, 512 MB memory, and 4GB of storage but the built-in wifi, webcam as well as its light weight makes it a usable and affordable laptop.

The market response to this new gadget may have prompted other manufacturers to join into the fray. There are dozens of new ultra mobile PCs (UMPC) coming out this year – from MSI to ECS, HP, Gigabyte and Astone. Intel even has a partnership with Neo to turn the Classmate PC commercially and call it Neo Explore X1.

I looked at 4 sub-Php20k UMPCs and compare them side by side to see which one gets you the best bang for your buck. In the chart below, we have the Asus Eee PC 4G, the Neo Explore X1, Astone UMPC and Deep Blue H1.



All four models mentioned above are currently available in the Philippines, has a 7-inch screen and costs under Php20,000. Take note though that they don’t come with an optical drive (CD/DVD) so you need to purchase it separately.

We compare all aspects of the laptop – from the CPU to the on-board memory to the storage capacity, among others. A quick inspection of the specs among the four will give you an impression that it’s a toss-up between the Astone UMPC and the Deep Blue H1 with only a Php2,000 price difference between the two. If you fancy a touch screen and stylus, then Astone might be the choice for a couple thousand bucks more. It’s also lighter than the Deep Blue H1. The bet though would go on the side of the latter because it’s more affordable.

If you still decide to go with the more popular Asus Eee PC, you might want to check out my earlier review about it here.

As more and more players enter the market, they’ll offer better features and the prices go down further. And we all love healthy competition, don’t we?

- Abe Olandres / YugaTech

Last week, I was invited to attend and be one of the reactors in the Philippine e-Commerce Forum 2008 organized by the Philippine Internet Commerce Society, Department of Trade and Industry and the Commission on Information and Communications Technology.

The forum was a multi-sectoral effort to assess the status of electronic commerce in the country and suggest ways to improve its growth both in policy, infrastructure, security and privacy aspects.

As a consumer and tech blogger, I shared some of my personal observations to the group:

First, something needs to be done with the One Price Tag Law. It was supposed to protect consumers from being offered two different price tags – one for cash and another one for credit card, which is slightly higher. When the law came into effect, most stores complied. However, the "one" price tag they used instead was the one for the credit card. They then, just tell customers that they'll offer "discounts" for cash purchases.

Pretty sneaky, isn't it? At the end of the day, the problem hasn't actually been solved. Same masked monster, just a different costume.

Second, the essence of e-Commerce is that goods and services should be cheaper due to savings from usual overhead shouldered by merchants when running brick-and-mortar stores. This economic benefit is not realized in our case. Most of the time, goods bought online are even more expensive than getting them from the store or the mall. Add that to my point #1 where using a credit card is more expensive and credit cards are the most common form of payment online.

Third and most important, we still have a long way to go in the Consumer Rights department. IMO, consumer rights do not exist in the Philippines. Where else can you see those "No Return, No Exchange Policy" notices? People become wary with every purchase they make and nature of faceless online transactions only widens the gap. There must be a certain level of trust and assurance that transactions done online are carried out fairly and transparently. Consumers should also be educated that any credit card transaction they make can be disputed and protected to give them some degree of confidence.

All the issues I pointed out are basic factors affecting a healthy ecommerce ecosystem. Unless they are addressed, that ecosystem will never flourish as fast as we all wanted it to be.

The Philippines may only have just over 3 million credit card users, but there are more than 40 million mobile phone users; and we know that mobile users now have the capability to remit or make payments via mobile phones. So, the potential market for e-commerce (including m-commerce which is a subset) is actually huge. That doesn't even count the 8 million or so OFWs who are already very familiar with e-commerce.

The saturation point will only be achieved if the fundamentals are sound and the underlying economics are favourable to transact online. Only then will we see the growth of e-Commerce in the Philippines be at par with the rest of our neighbouring Asian countries. - Abe Olandres/YugaTech