MANILA, Philippines, December 20, 2012 - PLDT Global Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of PLDT Group, the Philippines largest telecommunication firm, has made another breakthrough entry in the European market. Through an MVNO partnership with one of the most established operators and platform providers, Teleena – the Mobile Virtual Network Enabler of Vodafone in the United Kingdom, the collaboration is deemed to set the bar in the UK MVNO market specifically catering to the Filipinos.  
 
Sealing the deal with a special Pre-Christmas celebration on 15 December 2012 at the Brewery in London - they launched the home-grown SMART Pinoy SIM card, ready to serve the Filipino community in the UK. 
 
The alliance of the two formidable firms has brought forth to the Filipinos a well differentiated product that brings the unique Smart experience and a slew of services familiar to them. Some of these product features include local and international Pass-a-load and E-Load services, affordable Data bundles, an ever reliable free 24/7 Filipino-speaking customer service and access to the SMART Pinoy Store.
 
But one of the key features of this service is that it gives the most affordable call and text rates to the Philippines and within the UK.  Calling their loved ones back home on PLDT landlines, they can make 0.04p/minute calls through the Sulit TipIDD feature, giving them more time to catch up with relatives despite the distance. SMART Pinoy subscribers can also make calls to any Philippine mobile number at 0.13p/minute without any minimum top-up. They can also send text messages to that to any mobile number in the Philippines at 12p per SMS. 
 
With its unique value proposition, it is without a doubt that Smart Pinoy will warm the hearts of the Filipinos this Christmas.
 
“The UK is a very competitive and attractive market in Europe and a lot of parties are launching here as an MVNO.  We are happy for a company like PLDT to have chosen Teleena as a partner to enable them in the UK and maybe we can look beyond the UK in the near future” says Michiel van der Pant, Sales Director and Co-Founder of Teleena.
 
Alex Caeg., President and CEO of PLDT Global further underscored the future cooperation by saying: “It is our goal to make the 75 Million subscribers of PLDT, Smart and Sun in the Philippines accessible to all our countrymen in the UK and soon the various parts of Europe. We will continue to explore possible partnership with Teleena not only in the UK but in other parts of the EU.”
 
Indeed, with the coalition of the two giants, PLDT Global and Teleena, Filipinos in the UK and across Europe can envisage a uniquely Filipino set of services going beyond telecommunications.