The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
By Riza Lozada
Globe Telecom recently reported consolidated earnings before income tax depreciation and amortization (Ebitda) for 2015 at P45.8 billion, 17 percent higher from a year ago.
“Driven by the growth in Ebitda, and coupled with lower non-operating expenses recognized during the year just ended, Globe posted an all-time high in net income at P16.5 billion, 23 percent higher than the P13.4 billion reported in 2014,” the company reported to the bourse.
Globe achieved its highest full-year consolidated service revenues of P113.7 billion, 15 percent higher than the previous record level of P99 billion in 2014.
Globe attributed its achievement to the sustained growth of data consumption across all segments and consolidation of Bayan Telecommunications Inc. (Bayan) in the second half of 2015.
“We made history again in 2015 as Globe delivered a banner year, closing 2015 with record revenues, Ebitda and net income. We have proven year after year our strong commitment to create and deliver value for our customers and shareholders.
Our latest achievements continue to motivate us to be more efficient, focused and ready to take on new challenges in the years ahead.” said Ernest L. Cu, president and CEO of Globe. “As we foresee an increasingly challenging competitive landscape moving forward, we will continue to strengthen our leadership in the digital space, gearing all our efforts toward uplifting the state of internet services in the country and fortifying the Globe brand as a whole to be the customer’s first choice for all their data needs.” Cu added.
Mobile revenues grew by 9 percent year-on-year, reaching P85.1 billion in 2015 from the P78.1 billion reported a year ago, driven by strong revenues across all mobile brands. Globe Postpaid revenues posted a 7 percent growth from the same period of 2014 with its continued leadership in this segment boosted by the strong take up of the new myLifestyle Plans.
The mass-market brand TM increased revenues by 14 percent year-on-year.
Globe Prepaid revenues posted a solid growth of 8 percent.
Globe reached new milestone with 52.9 million subscribers as of end-December 2015 from 44 million subscribers reported in 2014, owing to the record-level gross acquisitions during the year and lower churn rates in both prepaid brands.
Mobile-data service revenues reached P22.1 billion in 2015, better than P14.3 billion reported a year ago, with growth trajectory attributed to the company’s sustained improvement in 3G, HSPA+ and LTE networks.
Globe spent around P32.1 billion in capital expenditures as of end-December 2015 to support the growing subscriber base and its demand for data. Of the total capital expenditures spent this year, close to half was for the data service needs of its customers. To date, Globe has a total of 28,336 base stations, with over 18,300 for 4G1, to support the service requirements of its customers.
Mobile voice increased 6 percent year-on-year despite the declining international voice business and partially offsetting the 10 percent decline in SMS revenues, Globe reported.
Total broadband service revenues reached P17.5 billion in 2015, with total subscriber base now reaching 4.3 million driven by subscriber expansion in both wireless (+56 percent) and wired broadband (+48 per-cent) solutions, given the fa-vorable customer response to Globe’s various Tattoo on-the-go and Tattoo@home broadband offerings, bundling broadband plans with access to premium content such as Spotify, NBA League Pass and HOOQ.
Globe’s fixed line data busi-ness likewise improved year-onyear by 40 percent to reach P7.7 billion in 2015 from the P5.5 billion posted in 2014.
The strong demand for in-ternet and domestic leased lines, as well as cloud computing solu-tions, contributed to the revenue growth in the fixed-data business.
The growth was likewise driven by the impact of consoli-dating Bayan’s fixed line data rev-enues starting the third quarter of 2015. Traditional fixed line voice revenues (now including Bayan), likewise posted a 23 percent in-crease year-on-year at P3.4 bil-lion as of end-2015 due to the continued popularity of the broadband bundled plans with the subscribers’ preference for value-based offers and low-priced plans. Excluding Bayan’s revenues, fixed line data and fixed line voice increased year-on- year by 21 percent and 8 percent, re-spectively.