OpenSignal
pronounces Globe Telecom to be the fastest internet service provider in the
country, besting competition in terms of upload and download speeds.
Philippine download
statistics from OpenSignal showed that Globe Telecom’s downlink speed in 10 selected
cities in the country averaged 2.40 Mbps, much faster than competitions’ average
downlink speed of 1.21 Mbps and 0.84 Mbps, respectively. These cities include
Manila, Quezon, Caloocan, Davao, Cebu, General Santos, Taguig, Pasig, Antipolo
and Zamboanga.
Upload statistics
from OpenSignal also showed that Globe Telecom’s average uplink speed of 1.37
Mbps in those ten cities beats competitions’ average upload speed of 0.98 Mbps
and 0.42 Mbps, respectively.
“These findings
reflect the superior network quality and performance that we aimed for through
our modernization initiative. We will continue to optimize our already
modernized network in line with our commitment of further advancing our network
infrastructure to enable us to stay ahead of our customers’ growing demand for bandwidth,”
Globe President & CEO Ernest Cu said.
Globe is the first
telecommunications company in the Philippines to achieve 100% 3G coverage for
its entire network, providing its customers with high-speed wireless internet
for faster data interchange on their mobile devices. Globe also expects to fully
equip its network with the more advanced 4G infrastructure, using the HSPA+
technology, by the end of the third quarter. This would further strengthen the
company’s capability to provide wonderful digital lifestyle experience to its
growing 43 million customers, as they will be able to enjoy faster data
connectivity even as they use bandwidth-intensive multimedia data applications,
such as video and photography.
This week, Globe
secured approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission to issue up to P10
billion worth of non-voting preferred shares. Globe specifically obtained
clearance to register up to 20 million new non-voting perpetual preferred
shares at an offer price of P500 per share. Proceeds from the share sale,
involving 14 million preferred shares worth P7 billion, and an oversubscription
option of six million shares worth P3 billion, will be used in part to fund
rollout of long-term evolution technology (LTE) and as well as investments in
fixed broadband.
Sustaining its
growth momentum, Globe posted a core net profit growth of 18% in the first half
of the year, underpinned by strong performance of its business segments.
Service revenues in the January to June totaled P47.7 billion, 7% higher than
the P44.5 billion reported in the same period last year, leading to core net
profit of P7.6 billion compared with P6.4 billion a year earlier. Net profit
stood at P6.8 billion, almost a four-fold increase from P1.4 billion a year
earlier.
Mobile revenues,
which accounted for 79% of consolidated services revenues, increased 5% to
P37.8 billion from P35.8 billion a year earlier, supported by higher revenue
contributions from mobile data and voice, complemented by continued subscriber
growth across all brands. With the sustained demand for internet connectivity
and the pervasiveness of data in new technologies and applications, Globe
Telecom’s broadband business maintained its solid contributions to revenue
growth, posting 14% and 24% year-on-year growth in revenues and subscribers,
respectively. Broadband revenues reached P5.9 billion in the first half of
2014, with total subscriber base now reaching 2.2 million. The solid growth in
revenues was driven by subscriber expansion in the wireless broadband, with 30%
increase and, fixed broadband with a 12% growth.
