Filipinos may – rightfully – continue complaining about the slow Internet connection in the country, but – of the available services in the country, Globe Telecom was announced to provide the fastest Internet service in the Philippines, particularly in terms of upload and download speeds, according to OpenSignal, which crowdsources cell phone signal strength.
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.
Globe is the first telecommunications company in the Philippines to achieve 100% 3G coverage for its entire network. Globe also expects to fully equip its network with the 4G infrastructure, using the HSPA+ technology by the end of the third quarter.
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), 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.
