Globe Telecom Inc. said its mobile business is now back to pre-pandemic levels with mobile revenues in the first half of the year at P54 billion, a 3 percent improvement.
Second quarter revenues were at P27 billion, the company’s fourth highest quarterly revenue so far.
“It was powered entirely by the growth in mobile data services, which also reached an all-time high,” the company said.
Globe’s first half mobile data traffic hit 2,177 petabytes, a 24 percent increase from last year.
“This is higher than the competition’s reported 2,081 petabytes for the said period,” it said.
Mobile data average revenue per user was up 20 percent to 9.7 gigabytes per month.
Globe said the growth was driven by its prepaid brands, which utilize a lot of mobile data and other non-telco solutions such as mobile wallet GCash.
“Mobile data has benefited from increased mobility and the reopening of the economy. And moving into the second half of the year, we are well aware of the inflationary pressures that we’re facing. Because of that, our focus has always been to provide our customers with relevant products and services that will provide them the best value,” said Issa Guevarra-Cabreira, Globe chief commercial officer.
Globe, meanwhile, said it continues to expand its fiber footprint, with fiber subscribers and revenues growing 102 percent and 135 percent, respectively. Globe has already rolled out over one million fiber-to-the-home lines as of the end of June.
“Home broadband’s total revenues have also exceeded pre-pandemic levels at P13.8 billion,” it said.
“Although the home broadband market is still underserved, Globe believes that the postpaid broadband market is already nearing its saturation point. This points to lower market segments in need of fiber connectivity at more affordable levels that remain unserved,” the Ayala-controlled telco added.
Cabreira said Globe is addressing this through its TMBayan Fiber WiFi, a service especially designed for the prepaid market, tapping into sari-sari stores and similar “tambayans” as community WiFi hubs.
“There is a segment of the market that is predominantly prepaid but is now in need of better speeds and more reliable connection that fiber can provide,” Cabreira said.
TMBayan Fiber WiFi is initially available in over 200 hubs across the country: 53 in Metro Manila; 89 in Luzon including Bulacan, Pampanga, Cavite and Laguna; 31 in Visayas, specifically Cebu; and 29 in Mindanao, including Davao del Norte and Davao del Sur. – Ruelle Castro
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