Globe Telecom Inc. said it expects to sustain its revenue growth trajectory next year on higher demand for content and data connectivity.
“Subscribers to us are important but it’s not the end-goal. We want to take up subscribers who really use the service and consume a lot of data, a lot of voice and SMS hopefully and so we need to acquire,” Globe president and chief executive Ernest Cu said.
“That’s why we marked the very big milestone of 50 million wireless consumers today or this quarter. Hopefully, this is going to become sort of a mode to gain more revenue and not the end,” he said.
Cu said the company was on track to meet its P100-billion revenue target this year.
“We’ve been growing so we will be gaining market share and it is our intent to continue that momentum in the many years to come,” Cu said.
Globe senior advisor for consumer business Dan Horan said the company’s mobile data revenues once again exceeded expectations, maintaining its robust double-digit growth in revenues and traffic, as well as triple-digit growth in user base.
“We are confident that we can sustain this growth momentum towards the end of the year as the demand for data connectivity during the holidays is expected to soar. This shift to the digital lifestyle is part of our commitment to drive the country’s position as the world’s next social media capital,” he added.
Globe’s mobile browsing and other data revenues rose 48 percent to P15.1 billion in the first nine months of the year from P10.2 billion year-on-year.
The Ayala-led telecommunications firm said mobile data users grew 126 percent year-on-year, while mobile data traffic increased 89 perfect from the previous year’s level.
Horan said the co-branding agreement with Cherry Mobile was a strategic move for the company to attract at least 2 million to 3 million additional prepaid customers as it expandeds its reach in the mass market segment, enabling their digital lifestyle with call, text and data offerings that give value for money.
Besides Cherry Mobile, Globe teamed up with Oppo to strengthen its foothold in the prepaid market. It also recently teamed up with Google to bring Chromecast to the country, giving users a new way to stream their favorite entertainment content at home.
Globe earlier reported a net income of P14.14 billion in the January-September period, up 34 percent from P10.53 billion it booked in the same period last year.
Globe’s core profit, which excludes the impact of the non-recurring items, one-time gains, foreign exchange and mark-to-market charges, rose 10 percent to P12.71 billion in the nine-month period from P11.61 billion a year earlier.
Globe posted consolidated service revenues of P83.4 billion in the first nine months, up 15 percent from P72.7 billion last year.
Globe’s mobile subscriber base reached 50.1 million as of end-September, up 17 percent from 42.9 million a year ago, driven by record-level gross acquisitions.