Globe Telecom Inc. said Monday net income fell 50 percent in the third quarter from a year ago, after acquiring 50 percent of San Miguel Corp.’s telecom assets.
Globe, which is controlled by conglomerate Ayala Corp., said net income amounted to P2.7 billion in July to September, down from P5.43 billion it earned in the same period last year.
This brought the company’s net profit in the first nine months to P11.7 billion, down 17 percent from P14.1 billion in the same period in 2015.
Globe blamed the decline in net profit to the higher depreciation and non-operating charges, including the acquisition of a 50-percent stake in Vega Telecom Inc. Globe and PLDT Inc. bought Vega for P70 billion.
Globe’s core profit, which excludes the impact of the non-recurring items, one-time gains, foreign exchange and mark-to-market charges, stood at P11.7 billion, down by 8 percent year-on-year.
“Notwithstanding the serious turn in the level of competition, Globe’s overall financial results remained strong and still on-track with our guidance for the year, marked by record-level subscriber acquisitions, churn improvements and increased data adoption,” Globe president and chief executive Ernest Cu said.
“We remain steadfast with the expansion of our data network and capacities, to maximize the use of the additional 700 and 2600 megahertz frequencies, to give our customer the best experience in terms of the speed and reliability of our internet services,” Cu said.
The company’s consolidated service revenues rose 7 percent in the first nine months to P89.1 billion from P83.4 billion in the same period last year.
Globe’s consolidated service revenues was unchanged at P29.5 billion in the third quarter.
Mobile service revenues, which accounted for 77 percent of Globe’s consolidated service revenues in the first nine months, rose 1 percent to P68.3 billion from last year’s level of P67.5 billion.
Globe had a total mobile subscriber base of 65.4 million, up 23 percent from 53.1 million subscribers last year.
Globe’s fixed-line and home broadband revenues posted a 31-percent increase to P20.8 billion in the first nine months from P15.8 billion last year.
The company spent P26.6 billion in capital expenditures in the first nine months to support the growing subscriber base and its aggressive data network expansion, in which 64 percent was spent for data-related initiatives.
This also include spends on the deployments for LTE on 700MHz.
Globe earlier announced additional capital expenditures of $300 million for network expansion, for its mobile data ($160 million), corporate data ($50 million) and home broadband ($90 million).
Globe has a total of 29,860 base stations, with close to 19,000 base stations for 4G3, to support the service requirements of its customers.
