Globe looks to broadband Internet as new growth driver

MANILA, Philippines - Globe Telecom is positioning for market leadership in broadband Internet which is seen   as the next growth driver in a local telecom landscape struggling with a maturing mobile phone market.

At the recent Frost & Sullivan Philippines Telecom International Summit 2009, Globe officials said they are tapping opportunities in the broadband market where it has seen  robust growth on its broadband subscribers. This growth translated to a revenue  improvement of about P907 million or 69 percent from last year to reach P2.2 billion in revenues by end-September this year.

With cellular penetration rate now at 80 percent of the population, telecom  companies are now turning to broadband as the new growth frontier. “What we are doing is  stimulating usage among value subscribers. It is no longer a one-size fits all market. The challenge for operators is to find the applications and new product offers that will drive usage,” Globe president and CEO Ernest Cu said.

For the third quarter of the year, Globe’s broadband business continued to gain momentum as subscriber base grew almost three-fold to over half a million subscribers, beating full-year expectations.

All its broadband products posted record quarterly net additions with its fully mobile  Internet service Globe Broadband Tattoo leading the way. The company noted that Globe Broadband Tattoo is now the country’s fastest growing mobile broadband service.

Determined to take a big chunk of the broadband market, Globe continues to build its network to accommodate the demand for broadband service, both for nomadic and  mobile broadband as well as fixed broadband for homes and businesses.

To bring broadband to mo re Filipino homes especially to OFW families and to the SMEs, Globe commercially launched its WiMAX network on February 2009 in Cebu City, the first in the country. WiMAX brings together the best that DSL and fixed wireless offers to consumers.