Consumers want prepaid electricity — Meralco-GE survery

More consumers in Meralco’s franchise would rather use prepaid electricity, citing the need to manage their appliance use and match the timing of their household expenses with income. Results of a recent joint survey conducted by Meralco and global conglomerate General Electric showed just that, Alfredo Panlilio, Meralco senior vice president said in a statement Thursday. "Prepaid and buying tingi or sachet is ingrained in the Filipino lifestyle. Many wage earners receive daily or weekly pay, so they would prefer that their expenses from mobile to Internet and — yes — to electricity be also on a tingi basis," Panlilio said. “This enables them to bridge the timing of their cash outflows," the Meralco official noted. Consumer interest in the prepaid system as a budget tool revolve on the need to teach other household members to save and share expenses, according to the survey. "If this can be made possible, [consumers] will avoid the monthly experience of having to pay a one-time big amount. With the prepaid scheme, electricity, thus, becomes more abot kaya for some segments of our customers," Panlilio said. Meralco customers believe that an effective management of electricity consumption using the prepaid system can actually lead to savings, according to the official. The study produced valuable insights about how customers view prepaid electricity, and this will guide Meralco in designing the service it intends to pilot within the year and implement on a wider scale in 2012. The pulse of customers "This prepaid innovation is meant to give our customers power of choice. That is why we wanted them to be involved from the beginning of this undertaking," the he noted. The consumer study was implemented as part of the distribution utility’s desire to monitor the pulse of its customers. The research involved focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with respondents from Meralco’s franchise areas. The Meralco prepaid electricity is similar to the system of loading mobile phone credits that can be bought at the nearest sari-sari store or prepaid outlet. Using the consumer’s subscriber information number, the amount of prepaid credits is loaded via text message. Prepaid electricity is already in place in South Africa and Indonesia, and more recently in India, Australia, and New Zealand. In South Africa and Indonesia, consumers use tokens and a meter with numbered keys where a code is punched in to load credits, according to Meralco. "What will make Meralco’s implementation different from those countries is our leveraging on the strength of prepaid telecoms in the Philippines," Panlilio said. "The Filipino’s love affair with his prepaid mobile is a powerful vehicle we will ride on, making the Philippine implementation somewhat unique versus the early adopters of the service," Panlilio said. Publicly listed Meralco is majority controlled by Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., with San Miguel Corp., First Philippine Holdings Corp. and other investors as minority shareholders in the power utility. — VS, GMA News