Globe upgrades growth target as PH economy improves

Globe Telecom revised upwards its revenue growth forecast for the year, backed by a strong first quarter performance and the economy’s reopening.

Issa Guevarra-Cabreira, chief commercial officer at the Ayala-led firm, said in a briefing on Friday that 2022 was “looking good” such that the company decided to upgrade its growth target from a “low single digit” to a “mid single digit.”

The revision came after the telco player saw its net income increase by 86 percent to P13.66 billion in the first quarter as mobile and corporate data businesses grew. The P10.5-billion gain from the sale of its data center business also boosted its bottom line.

Globe’s consolidated revenues for the period climbed 4 percent to P39.2 billion from last year’s P37.7 billion.

Mobile data revenues increased by 8 percent to P20.8 billion as of end-March from P19.2 billion last year as lockdowns eased. The solid performance of its information and communication technology businesses lifted Globe’s corporate data revenues by 18 percent to P3.9 billion.

Globe president and CEO Ernest Cu said the recent inflation hike could potentially affect customers’ spending ability, but he was not worried as “telco revenues tend to be resilient.” The Philippine Statistics Authority reported recently that inflation rose to a 40-month-high of 4.9 percent in April due to higher oil and food prices.

“Obviously, it (inflation) will have an impact on the consumers’ wallet and their ability to spend but we do believe that in the hierarchy of needs, the telco, the internet connectivity, ranks very very high,” he explained. “But then again, we have to be very cautious because as we know, when oil prices go up to this level, all goods are affected.”

In the first quarter, Globe spent P21 billion out of its P89-billion programmed capital expenditure for the year for network upgrades and infrastructure development.

In the January-March period, Globe built 234 new cell sites, upgraded over 3,500 mobile sites and rolled out 380 new 5G sites.

Its 5G network now covers 95 percent of the National Capital Region and 84 percent of Visayas and Mindanao.