PLDT wireless subsidiary Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) and smartphone brand OPPO are joining forces to make advanced, but affordable, LTE devices more accessible to Filipinos.

Under the partnership, Smart and OPPO are offering the OPPO A5s to Smart, TNT and Sun users at a discounted price, to enable more customers to upgrade and start using LTE smartphones.

The OPPO A5s is available for P5,990, discounted from its original price of P6,990. It comes with a Smart LTE Prepaid SIM and data freebies. Upon activation, the customer automatically gets 1GB, plus an additional 1GB upon loading P100 within three days, valid for three days. It also comes with data rewards for a year, where customers get 500MB for every P150 accumulated load, valid for three days.

Have you read “Samsung handsets to support Smart’s VoLTE, VoWifi”?

“To ensure that our customers have the best possible experience when they use the Smart LTE network, we are also teaming up with brands like OPPO in making LTE devices more accessible,” said Oscar Enrico A. Reyes Jr, PLDT Senior Vice President for Consumer Business—Individual Group.

“This partnership allows us to give a generous discount of P1,000 to our subscribers. This, in turn, allows more consumers to enjoy a great phone on a great network, that they can use to do the things they love,” he added.

This project is among Smart and OPPO’s joint initiatives to serve their customers better.

Long Term Evolution (LTE) is the best technology for data as it allows users to experience faster upload and download speeds for video streaming and mobile gaming, for example.

The OPPO A5s also features a 13MP and 5MP dual-rear camera and an 8MP front camera, a 6.2” Waterdrop Screen HD+, Octa-Core 2.3 GHz, 3GB RAM and 32 GB ROM, and boasts a ‘best-in-class’ battery of 4,230mAh, compared to the usual 3,000mAh of other devices in the same price range.

“OPPO and Smart have been working together to empower the Filipino market with quality smartphones like the OPPO A5s,” said OPPO Philippines Vice President of Channel Sales Zen Han. “OPPO believes that this takes us a step closer to connecting the world.”

Upgraded networks

In the first nine months of the year, PLDT has expanded its fiber optic transmission and distribution network to over 307,000 kilometers. This fiber infrastructure also supports Smart’s mobile network. As of September 2019, Smart has deployed about 21,700 LTE base stations across the country.

As of the first nine months of the year, Smart estimates that the number of LTE data users on its network jumped 82% from a year ago. The increased appetite of these customers for data-heavy activities such as video streaming and mobile gaming on their phones has contributed to the doubling year-on-year of mobile data traffic on Smart’s network to 1.1 Exabytes.