Globe 2022 earnings surge on record-high sales

Globe Telecom Inc. managed to book a 46-percent net income growth last year after posting an all-time high consolidated revenue, driven by robust mobile and corporate data businesses.

In a disclosure on Tuesday, the telco giant reported its net profit rose to P34.6 billion last year from P23.72 billion in 2021, thanks to service revenues climbing by 4 percent to P157.98 billion for the period.

These were mainly supported by topline figures from mobile segment, which inched up by 3 percent to P107.52 billion. Corporate data revenues, meanwhile, surged by 21 percent to P17.20 billion.

“Despite 2022 being a challenging year marked by inflationary pressures, high interest rates and weakened consumer confidence, Globe once again showed resilience,” Globe president and CEO Ernest Cu said.

Earnings before income tax, depreciation and amortization grew by 6 percent to P79.1 billion for the period. It also booked a one-time gain of P8.4 billion from the partial sale of its data center business.

Meanwhile, Globe is slowing down on capital expenditure this year after its spending peaked due to data infrastructure projects. It is set to “focus on bringing the company back to more sustainable free cash flow levels.”

The Ayala-led company said that capex guidance for the year was $1.3 billion, which was 30 percent lower than $1.9 billion in 2022. It aims to further bring this down to $1 billion by 2024.

Bulk or 86 percent of the capex last year were earmarked for data requirements given the increasing digital adoption. It deployed over 1.4 million fiber-to-the home lines last year to meet the growing demand for connectivity.

The company installed 2,267 new 5G sites in 2022. It has now 97.2-percent coverage in the National Capital Region and 90.2 percent in key cities in Visayas and Mindanao.

GCash, the company’s e-wallet service provider, ended 2022 with 76 million registered users and 5.8 million merchants and social sellers. It has disbursed over P57-billion worth of loans to two million borrowers so far, which is in line with the emerging trend of buy-now-pay-later offerings or online installment payment schemes.

Last year, Globe inked three sale and lease back deals amounting to P91 billion in total for its 7,059 towers in a bid to improve cost efficiency. INQ