DITO Telecommunity Corp., the joint venture between Davao-based businessman Dennis Uy and China Telecoms on Tuesday said it is set to commercially launch on March 8 in Visayas and Mindanao.

“We want the public to know that on March 8 of this year, we will be having our commercial launch and it is going to be launch in waves … we are going to start first in Mindanao. Our initial commercial rollout will be Mindanao and Visayas,” Adel Tamano, chief administrative officer of Dito said.

“And then as we move on in waves we will of course within the year we will already offering our services in NCR, Luzon and the rest of the Philippines,”  he added. 

Tamano said its telecom services will be available in Metro Manila and other parts of the country in the second quarter of the year. 

DITO earlier passed its first technical audit by an independent auditor R.G. Manabat & Co., which was commissioned by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC). 

The independent auditor reported to NTC that DITO’s first year of national population coverage reached 37.48 percent or 37,845,315 based on the 2015 national census population of 100,983,124. It covered 8,860 barangays.