Young Pinoys prefer prepaid plans – Globe

MANILA, Philippines — Globe Telecom Inc. is relying more on prepaid products to drive data growth, aiming its sights on younger users who are hesitant to subscribe to long-term plans.

Globe chief commercial officer Darius Delgado told reporters that the telco wants to capture the growing demand for prepaid internet among Filipinos.

In particular, Delgado said Globe is looking at selling more to younger families – whose couples are in mid-20s – that require high data volume but want to control their internet spending.

However, Delgado was quick to quash any assumptions that Globe may be pandering altogether to the low-income market. He said demand is changing, and gone are the days when postpaid is for the rich and prepaid is for the poor.

“When you slice and dice the prepaid market, (subscribers there) don’t mean they are poor. They are just less affluent than postpaid customers, but when you look at their spending, they are also high-value customers,” Delgado said.

For instance, Delgado said Globe’s low-cost offering GFiber Prepaid is used as a secondary line in urban areas, while it is tapped as a connectivity source in rural towns.

Currently, customers subscribed to GFiber Prepaid load up mostly the seven-day option of P199, with a download speed of up to 50 Mbps.

Based on Globe’s financial report in 2024, GFiber Prepaid maintains the highest reload rate of 78 percent among all prepaid brands, and the product serves more than 260,000 subscribers.

Recently, Globe introduced the Globe at Home 5G WiFi, its maiden entry into the fixed wireless access market for 5G. The service promises reduced latency for gaming and streaming, catering to the needs of younger subscribers.

The product also comes with a money back guarantee, where customers can refund within seven days if they are unhappy with the internet quality. As a first, the modem comes with select art of some of the country’s national artists such as Larry Alcala and Vicente Manansala.

Globe is confident the product would gain traction, particularly among younger households, as its 5G now covers 98.51 percent of Metro Manila and select cities in Visayas and Mindanao.

When compared, 5G offers better speeds and lower latency than 4G, enabling quality streaming, quicker browsing, seamless gaming, among others.