BUSINESS

Globe’s digital pivot pushes capitalization to P321.25 billion

Raffy Ayeng

Globe Telecom's digital pivot, venturing into fintech, healthtech, edutech, entertainment, adtech, e-commerce, manpower, information technology services, and investments, has cemented its dominance as the largest publicly-listed telecommunications company in the Philippines, reporting P321.25 billion in terms of market capitalization.

Globe also leads the competition by successfully transitioning from a telco operator to a technology-based solutions provider.

Amid headwinds brought primarily by elevated inflation and aggressive, "Globe is starting to reap gains as it pivots to becoming a digital solutions platform to address the day-to-day pain points of Filipinos. The way investors value us is very encouraging and that we have taken the right strategy for growth," said Globe Group President and CEO Ernest Cu.

Globe has grown its portfolio with ventures into financial technology, healthcare, edutech, entertainment, ad tech, e-commerce, manpower, information technology services, and investments from its core telco business, in line with its enduring commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, specifically UN SDG No. 9 which emphasizes the importance of infrastructure and innovation as significant drivers of economic growth and development.

Globe continues to look for new ideas and businesses ready to scale via its wholly-owned corporate venture company, 917Ventures, as it further secures its position as an industry leader.

917Ventures portfolio companies include Mynt, which operates e-wallet giant GCash, telehealth companies KonsultaMD and HealthNow, digital marketing solutions firm AdSpark, online grocery platform Rappit, and loyalty and e-commerce solutions provider RUSH, coding boot camp KodeGo, programmatic advertising firm DeepSea, online tutorial platform EdVenture, and multi-channel messaging platform  m360.

Globe also booked a four percent year-on-year increase in revenues to an all-time high of P78.9 billion in the first half of the year, fueled by the solid contribution of data-related products and services across mobile and corporate data and supplemented by the performance of non-telco services.

This translated to a 51 percent jump in net income to P19.7 billion from January to June this year compared to P13.0 billion in the same period last year.

After spending a record P92.8 billion for its capital expenditures last year, Globe has already spent P50.5 billion in the first half of this year for network upgrades to meet the data requirements of its customers. It has been boosting its fiber assets, building new cell sites, upgrading towers to 4G and LTE, and expanding 5G coverage.