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International roamers prefer to stay on Wi-Fi when traveling to the Philippines

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Opensignal has looked at the time our international users spend on Wi-FI when visiting the Philippines and roaming on Filipino networks, to quantify the scale they use Wi-Fi for data connectivity instead of local mobile services. This is a companion piece to our insight on the real-world mobile network experience of our users around the top tourist destinations in the Philippines, as there are millions of travelers from abroad visiting the country every year.

 

Key findings

  • International roamers spend more time on Wi-Fi when in the Philippines than domestic Filipino users.
  • Incoming international users connect to Wi-Fi in the Philippines a lot more often than in their home countries — which is a different trend to what Opensignal previously observed in Europe.
  • The difference in Wi-Fi usage habits is especially noticeable for Southeast markets, which spend less time on Wi-Fi — Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.

 

 

The good mobile network experience in top tourist destinations in the Philippines benefits both international travelers. However, if incoming tourists subscribe to plans at home that include unfavorable rates and fees for international roaming, they are more likely to search and rely on public Wi-Fi networks. e.g. in hotels or restaurants. This in turn means less traffic and smaller revenue streams from data roaming for local operators — although, inter-operator roaming agreements heavily determine the roaming fees for customers.

With this in mind, Opensignal looked at how often international roamers connect to Wi-Fi services when visiting the Philippines. On all networks, we observed that international roamers spent more time connected to Wi-Fi on Filipino mobile networks than domestic Filipino users — with the largest discrepancy seen on DITO’s network, of 23 percentage points.

 

 

Opensignal also analyzed the Wi-Fi connectivity habits of our users from 13 markets across the world. These markets are in the list of top 20 visitor arrivals to the Philippines according to the Department of Tourism statistics — and are either relatively close to the Philippines or much farther from this country. Incoming international users spend more time on Wi-Fi in the Philippines than in their home countries. We spotted especially stark gaps for Southeast Asian markets like Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, where there is a substantial percentage of mobile-only users who never or very rarely connect to Wi-Fi services at home. 

 

This is a different trend from what we previously observed in Europe, where our European users spend a lot less time on Wi-Fi in other European countries than at home. High domestic scores for Time on Wi-Fi are usually driven by users connecting to their home or work Wi-Fi on their mobile devices, often automatically. Lower scores for Time on Wi-Fi while roaming show that European users do not mind using their mobile plans when traveling in Europe and do not actively seek Wi-Fi connectivity when traveling. This is due to European Union-mandated “roam like at home” rules, that ​​allow EU customers to use their voice and data allowance from home mobile plans while roaming around Europe,  with no extra charges

 

However, in the case of the Philippines, our users’ Time on Wi-Fi scores while roaming are substantially higher than domestic use in the travelers’ home countries. This means, they are less comfortable with using their mobile data while traveling to the Philippines and rely heavily on access to public Wi-Fi networks. This behavior is likely driven by the necessity to manage their mobile roaming costs, avoid pricey roaming charges, and minimize the use of expensive roaming packages for the Philippines.

 

 

The mobile network experience is essential for tourists in their holiday destinations — not just in terms of entertainment, social media, and staying in touch but also when it comes to emergencies. The overall experience of our mobile users in the Philippines varies significantly between tourist destinations, which is often the result of the operators’ varied focus on their network investments. Our data demonstrates that international visitors are less keen on using mobile data services in the Philippines, which opens the opportunities for local operators to offer eSim services for tourists coming from abroad.