The 65-year-old Araneta Center—a sprawling commercial district in Metro Manila—is upgrading its internet infrastructure as its shoppers get younger.
The Araneta Group on Friday inaugurated the establishment of Wi-Fi hot spots with partner Globe Telecom.
The deal will allow Globe to roll out its GoWifi service across the 35-hectare Araneta Center, controlled by the influential Araneta family and one of the largest commercial areas in Quezon City.
The complex, anchored by the Gateway Mall, sits on a key railway juncture and lures about one million people per day.
“The demands are increasingly swayed by technology, and we have to adapt to that,” John Castelo, Araneta Group senior vice president for business development, told reporters on Friday.
He said most of their customers today were either millennials and from the so-called Generation Z, or those in their 30s and below.
The area is also transforming into a key office hub with the development of its P20-billion Araneta Center Cyberpark, which will mainly cater to business process outsourcing companies.
The tieup with the Araneta Group provides Globe another avenue to expand its public Wi-Fi platform, which spans some 2,500 locations around the Philippines.
“We realized that we cannot serve the whole public’s appetite for mobile data just through the mobile network. So it’s important to augment that,” Globe CEO Ernest Cu said.
GoWifi grew by over 500 sites over the previous year.
Cu said better internet services would also pave the way for other uses such as cashless financial transactions. Globe and Chinese billionaire Jack Ma are part owners of GCash.