Insatiable demand for mobile internet helped industry giant Globe Telecom achieve a big profit boost in the nine months through September this year even as capital spending went up.
Globe said in a stock exchange filing that core profit from January to September hit P15.3 billion, a gain of almost 37 percent from year-ago level. Net income—including nonrecurring charges, foreign exchange and mark-to-market charges—hit P15.2 billion, up from P13 billion last year.
The rise in internet-related services is a key driver of its earnings. Globe said mobile data revenue surged 23.6 percent to P38.7 billion. This was faster than the 20-percent growth in the same period in 2017.
Globe also reported a 10- percent increase in its subscriber base to 65.4 million as of end-September this year. Mobile data traffic surged 49 percent to 641 petabytes.
Mobile data now accounts for 50 percent of gross service revenue, up from 43 percent in 2017.
Globe cited investments in its 4G network, content partnerships and rising demand for internet TV, music and e-sports.
Globe said mobile revenue, which includes voice calls and text messaging, hit P77.7 billion, up about 6 percent. Total service revenue during the period was P101.9 billion, up 7 percent.
Meanwhile, Globe’s home broadband segment grew subscribers by 23 percent to 1.5 million. It said almost half of these were fixed wireless accounts. It said home broadband revenues hit P13.5 billion, up 15.4 percent while its corporate data business posted P8.4 billion in revenues, up 10.5 percent.
Globe also underscored its year-to-date capital spending of P32.5 billion to bolster its fixed and mobile networks. The figure, about 65 percent of its budget for the year, represented a third of revenue. Spending includes widening its LTE network and upgrades for pilot 5G services in 2019.
Globe is also preparing for increased spending in the coming years, in part due to government’s initiative to invite a new mobile player that will add competitive pressure. Its board announced a reduction in its dividend policy to 60 percent to 70 percent of the previous year’s core profit. This will be applied to its 2019 dividend declaration. The previous policy was to pay 75 percent to 90 percent of the previous year’s core income. —MIGUEL R. CAMUS