GCash, the mobile wallet of Globe Telecom Inc. and the country’s largest startup with a double-unicorn status, said Monday it is not the “best time” to undertake an initial public offering soon amid the so-called “tech winter.”
Tech winter refers to the bear market in the technology sector which involves job cuts and reduced hiring activities in the IT and startup community. GCash is a financial technology company that has popularized mobile and digital payments in the Philippines.
GCash chief financial officer Tek Olano said the market conditions were not ready for the company to undertake an IPO.
“I guess today, you can consider the period as basically your tech winter, so the market’s not there for any listing, so it’s not actually the best time for an IPO,” Olano said during Globe Telecom’s financial briefing Monday.
“What we’re doing now is we’re really using the time to continue to focus on growing the business, making sure we create value for the customers, making sure we build the digital ecosystem that’s needed so that when the time comes, we’ll be ready and we’ll be a very different company by then,” he said.
GCash remains the leading financial app in the country with over 71 million users as of end-September.
“Our GTV [gross transaction value] reached P4.8 trillion, surpassing the 2021 full year GTV of P3.8 trillion,” Olano said.
Olano said GCash unique borrowers went up by 74 percent, while disbursed value surged 95 percent year-on-year.
“We want to scale on lending. We feel that this is much needed service in the country,” he said.
The company also registered over P13 billion in deposits as of end-September.
“With our partnership with Alipay, GCash is now available as a payment option in Alipay QRs in Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and most recently in South Korea,” Olano said.
“Gcash remains to be the number one financial app in the country, maintaining our consistent profitability,” he said.
Mynt or Globe Fintech Innovations Inc. is the operator of GCash. It is the country’s first privately-held startup to reach double-unicorn status after it raised more than $300 million in its funding round from new and existing investors in November 2021.
Parent firm Globe Telecom posted a net income of P26.5 billion in the first nine months, up 48 percent from P18 billion last year.
Consolidated service revenue hit a record P118 billion, up 3 percent year-on-year led by corporate data and mobile services, supplemented by the sustaining growth from non-telco services.