The Philippines’ second largest telecoms operator by revenue and subscribers, Globe Telecom, has reported consolidated net profit of PHP7.99 billion (USD187 million) for the period January-September 2011, up 7% on the PHP7.45 billion figure reported in the corresponding period a year earlier. The telco attributed the strong performance to high revenue growth from its mobile and broadband operations. Consolidated service revenues climbed 9% year-on-year to PHP49.9 billion in 9M11, with third-quarter revenue hitting PHP17 billion alone – a 3% improvement on the previous quarter’s record of PHP16.6 billion, it said. EBITDA for the period was PHP27.03 billion versus PHP24.79 billion in January-September 2010. The strong set of results prompted Globe president and CEO Ernest L Cu to say: ‘We are pleased to have sustained our momentum and extended our gains into this third quarter, despite a very challenging competitive environment … Our mobile business has reversed the declines of last year, while our broadband business continues to deliver improved profitability with its growing scale. We have made good progress against the priorities we laid out in the beginning of the year. Our priority in the coming year is to execute well on our network and IT transformation programmes to put us in a better competitive position and bring the business to higher growth.’
Globe Telecom, which is owned by Filipino conglomerate Ayala Corp and Singapore Telecommunications, booked mobile revenues of PHP39.7 billion in the first nine months of this year, up 7% y-o-y, with the business contributing four-fifths of the group’s total turnover. The operator reported the rising popularity of its customisable post-paid service plans, cross-network offers and its unlimited voice/SMS promotion, which all fuelled growth in the period. ‘Globe Postpaid’ reported a record 116,000 net gains in 3Q11, while pay-as-you-go products ‘Globe Prepaid’ and ‘TM’ added 341,000 and 226,000 users, respectively. As at 30 September Globe had a total of 29.1 million mobile subscribers, up 15% from 25.4 million a year earlier, and higher than the 28.4 million reported at end-June.