Tracking Smart Communications' Mobile Data Prices In Recent Years

Did you know that apart from consistently improving their network infrastructure across the Philippines, Smart Communications - the country's leading mobile network - has also been lowering its mobile data prices steadily through the years?

In fact, from 2011 to 2017, the price of downloading 1MB via Smart has gone down from Php 1.20 to just 3.8 centavos.

You may think that this price decrease is not much but the truth is, based on the International Telecommunication Union's “Measuring the Information Society 2017” report, the Philippines’ mobile cellular prices as of 2016 - which cover Smart's offers - are already at par with the Asia Pacific region’s average and well below the world average.

To quote Smart's Press Release:

"According to the two-volume report, [...] fixed broadband prices (monthly subscription to an entry-level fixed-broadband plan, based on a monthly data usage of 1 GB minimum) in the Philippines are at 7.1% of GNI per capita, down from 7.53% in 2015. This figure is well below the regional average of 14.5% and the global average of 13.9%.

Mobile broadband prices for 500 MB and 1GB worth of data, on the other hand, each make up 2.1% of the GNI per capita. Both figures are lower than the Asia Pacific averages of 2.7% and 5.4% respectively, and the world averages of 3.7% and 6.8%, respectively.

Between 2015 and 2016, mobile-broadband services for 1GB data in particular have become more affordable, dropping by 4.64-percentage-points from 6.74% to 2.1%."

Smart's affordable data promos greatly contributed to making mobile connectivity more accessible to Filipinos nationwide.

In 2011, Smart launched Always On 300, which offered 250MB of data good for 30 days for just Php 300! In this promo, Smart charged Php 1.20 for every MB of data.

Smart Big Bytes 50 was released in 2014 and it allowed consumers to get 150MB of data + Free Spinnr good for 7 Days for only Php 50! Price of 1MB went to down to only 33 centavos.

Just a year after, Smart improved Smart Big Bytes 50 by beefing up the data allocation to 300 MB and adding 500 MB for Spinnr plus 100 MB for YouTube, Skype, and Qik -- albeit making the promo good for just Php 5 days. Still, the price of 1MB was diminished greatly, hitting just 6 centavos.

In 2016 and 2017, Smart introduced Giga Surf 50, letting subscribers enjoy 1GB of mobile data + 300MB of fixed app access for 3 days. At Php 50, this promo charged merely 3.8 centavos for every MB.

Recently, Smart Communications also started offering All Out Surf data promos that give Unlimited Facebook and Messenger access (along with Unli All-Net Texts) to Smart subscribers, starting at just Php 20 per day. Since Facebook is a major data hog - with all those photos and videos, I would imagine that this lowers the per MB price of data via Smart even further.

Are you also a Smart subscriber? Which data promo are you registering to often these days to get the most bang for your buck or the most value for your money? Kindly share your tips for other subscribers in our comments section below.