MANILA, Philippines, Dec. 2, 2014 - Globe Telecom, one of the Ieading telecommunications networks in the Philippines, is extending ownership of smartphones to each and every Filipino prepaid customer with a new service that allows them to avail of handsets with discounts and get their money back with every registration to a prepaid promo of their choice.

The Philippines is predominantly a prepaid market, with over 100 million prepaid customers who purchase a prepaid SIM and top-up prepaid load to use SMS, voice, and data services. 

GoGadgets is the first-of-its-kind prepaid service that allows customers to create their own prepaid bundle by choosing a gadget from a menu of discounted Android phones ranging from as low as US$60. Customers can get a Cloudfone 400dx, Samsung Trend Lite, Lenovo A536 and Nokia Lumia 635 LTE.

To complete their prepaid bundle, customers just need to choose their promo combo (texts to all networks or unlimited calls), the validity period of the promo (7, 15 or 30 days) and the registration period (6, 12, 18 or 24 months), with no need to submit any requirements. Customers can earn their money back via GCash, Globe Telecom's mobile money service, every time they register to any GoGadgets promo, which allows them to get their devices almost free.

"Globe continues to be a trailblazer in the Philippine telecoms industry with our game-changing innovations to our customers. With GoGadgets, prepaid customers get the latest smartphones and get their money back while enjoying the flexibility of prepaid promos. For as low as US$60 , prepaid customers can now own a smartphone enabling them to fully enjoy their digital lifestyle," says Issa Cabreira , Senior Vice President, Globe Consumer Mobile Marketing.

Globe revolutionized the Philippine mobile prepaid market as it pioneered GoSAKTO, a service that allows prepaid customers to create and customize their own prepaid promos based on their budget, lifestyle and needs. Early this year, Globe won the Best Mobile Service category of the 19 th Annual Global Mobile Awards by the GSM Association (GSMA), the global trade association for the world's 800 mobile networks. Under the said category, Globe received the Best Network-based Solution for Serving Customers Award for Globe Prepaid GoSakto: Create Your Own Promo, beating entries from telco operators worldwide such as Avea for Location-Based Push Notification Service, LG Uplus for U+Box, SpatialBuzz and Telefonica UK for the Trusted Network Programme powered by SpatialBuzz, and TurkCell for TurkCell SMS+.

The telecom company also bundled its core call and text promos with the world's top messaging apps such as Viber, FB Messenger, Kakao Talk, WeChat, WhatsApp, and Line, enabling customers to connect with their contacts from around the world.

During the third quarter of the year, Globe Telecom's prepaid business remained in full swing after its customer base breached the 40-million mark amidst intense competition and aggressive switching in the prepaid market.

As of end-September 2014, total prepaid base has grown to 40.7 million, up 18% from the 34.5 million customers as of the same period last year. The telco's digital brand for the youth Globe Prepaid grew its customer base to 18.9 million customers, a 12% increase from last year's customer base of 17 million.

Globe Prepaid gross acquisitions for the first nine months of the year grew to 11.6 million or 23% higher than the acquisition level in the same period last year of 9.4 million. Coming from strong gross acquisitions, net incremental subscribers likewise improved by 109% to 1.1 million from 523,797 in the same period last year.