MANILA — About 3 in 4 Filipinos say they found the SIM card registration process easy, a recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey showed.

The survey results released on Wednesday showed 72 percent of Filipinos considering the process easy, with 44 percent of them saying it was "very easy" and 28 percent saying it was "somewhat easy."

But another 28 percent of SIM card owners said the process was difficult for them, with 6 percent of them saying it was "very hard."

Across regions in the Philippines, Luzon areas outside Metro Manila had the highest number of Filipinos who found the SIM card registration easy with 78 percent.

The survey, which was held between March 26 and 29, also noted that more than half of Filipino SIM card owners had already registered the SIM cards a month before the original deadline.

SWS said 50 to 64 percent of Filipinos registered their SIM cards. The highest number of registrants were from the Visayas at 64 percent, followed by Metro Manila at 62 percent, the rest of Luzon at 55 percent, and Mindanao at 50 percent.

The survey also found 73 percent of Filipinos own at least one cellphone, with 80 percent of them using one SIM card.

"Among cellphone owners, 80 percent use one SIM card, 18 percent use two SIM cards, and 1 percent use either three or four SIM cards," SWS said.

Cellphone ownership was highest in Metro Manila at 83 percent, with ownership rising depending on educational attainment.

Mobile phone users were highest among college graduates and graduate students at 97 percent, followed by high school graduates and college-level Filipinos at 90 percent.

The survey was conducted a month before the SIM card registration period was extended for another 90 days. The original deadline lapsed on April 26.

For the said survey, SWS conducted in-person interviews of 1,200 respondents nationwide, with 300 each in Metro Manila, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.

The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) earlier said it was expecting 20 million more SIM cards to be registered before the extended deadline.

As of April 25, DICT said more than 82 million out of the 168 million active SIM cards nationwide have already been registered.

• 20 million more SIMs to be registered within 90-day extension, says DICT
• Marcos OKs 90-day extension of SIM registration

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