THE National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) is seeking the assistance of other government agencies to investigate the alleged smuggling of mobile phones.

“We will coordinate with the Bureau of Customs and the Bureau of Internal Revenue on why there are more imported phones versus the number of import permits that were processed by our office,” NTC Commissioner Gamaliel Cordoba said.

The number of import permits issued by the NTC to various mobile- phone makers from January to May translates to a total of 1.988 million handsets.

But when compared to the statistics of Germany’s GFK Group, the NTC’s figure is “grossly understated by 202,310, taking into account GFK’s claim that the Philippine mobile market averages 600,000 units per month,” said David Lim, president of Solid Broadband Corp., in a letter to the NTC.

Solid Broadband is the maker of MyPhone handsets. Lim said compared to MyPhone’s importation of 769,616 handsets, Nokia and Cherry Mobile’s phone covered by NTC permits to import total 37,551 and 8,920, respectively.

“It is crystal-clear that the number of handsets both foreign and local brands with import permits fall way below what was actually brought into the country, taking into account GFK data that pegs Nokia as the No. 1 brand market share leader for the past 10 years and Cherry Mobile’s sales volume of 200,000 to 400,000 units per month,” Lim said.

Imported handsets that have been given NTC permit stood at 868 for Sony Ericsson and 17 for Apple’s
iPhone, which is carried by Globe Telecom Inc.

“A check with the telco would reveal that 17 units are ridiculously low, considering that Globe is targeting a monthly average of 200,000 iPhones to be sold for this year,” Lim said.

Such discrepancy, Lim said, would result in millions of uncollected taxes and revenues. For instance, Lim cited the average selling price of a Nokia or Cherry Mobile handset at P3,000 each. Multiply this with the 202,310 undeclared handsets every month and this would translate in P606,930,000 potential revenue.

“Given such misdeclaration, we seriously doubt that even these imported foreign branded cell phones covered by the NTC permits to import have matching importation documents. NTC permits to import are by no means proof that the handsets have been actually imported and the corresponding duties and taxes have been paid. This being so, the losses of the government in uncollected taxes and customs duties due to smuggling of foreign-branded cell phone alone could amount to hundreds of millions, if not a billion pesos,” Lim said.

Lim’s company urged the NTC to conduct a thorough investigation of the alleged discrepancies and accordingly impose sanctions.  He also urged the commission to set up effective monitoring and enforcement mechanisms to prevent the recurrence of such discrepancies to ensure a level-playing field.