The Philippines’ second largest telecoms operator by subscribers and revenue, Globe Telecom, has revealed plans to expand the rollout of 5G services in key urban areas and business districts in the coming year. The telco, which switched on a fixed-wireless 5G home broadband service in June 2019, is now planning a far wider rollout in Metro Manila in 2020, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reports, initially focused in and around the Pasig area. Further, Globe is also reportedly testing the ‘other capabilities of 5G’, and to that end has announced the release of a 5G-enabled mobile phone – the Huawei Mate 30 Pro – for its high-end ‘platinum’ customers.
Ayala-led Globe committed PHP51 billion (USD1 billion) in 2019, a significant part of which helped drive a 139% increase in mobile network sites versus 2018 and 28% more 3G and 4G base stations y-o-y. It plans to spend a further PHP63 billion in fiscal 2020, including a portion (unconfirmed) for 5G. Full-year consolidated service revenues reached PHP149.0 billion in 2019, up by 12% from PHP132.9 billion in FY 2018 due to ‘the sustained data revenue growth across the mobile, home broadband and corporate data businesses’.