Globe sees growth in plan subscribers

MANILA, Philippines - Ayala-led Globe Telecom Inc. is set to provide subscribers with a new roster of devices as well as affordable plans this year to sustain the strong growth in last year’s subscriber base.

Raul Macatangay, head of Postpaid Business and Devices at Globe, said in a statement that the company is providing an upgraded experience particularly for its postpaid subscribers through the introduction of new devices and affordable plans.

“Keeping momentum in 2014, the company is set to provide an upgraded postpaid experience with its new roster of devices,” Macatangay said.

He said the new devices include the Huawei Ascend G526 LTE free at Plan 499 for the fastest browsing experience at an affordable LTE plan, Cloudfone Excite 451TV free at Plan 599 for access to local TV channels anytime, anywhere, and Nokia Lumia 1320 LTE free at Plan 1299 that allows users to play XBOX games on mobile.

Globe’s ended 2013 with double-digit growth both in postpaid revenues and subscriber base amid the aggressive switching campaigns and attractive price offerings of its competitors.

 Data showed that Globe’s postpaid subscriber base jumped 17 percent to 2.03 million last year from a year-ago level of 1.7 million as gross subscriber additions reached over 711,000 as of end-December.

Full year acquisitions also reflected the improving quality of acquired postpaid subscribers with 51 percent of gross additions signing up for postpaid plans with monthly service fees of P999 and above compared to 44 percent in 2012.

The postpaid revenues of Globe rose 18 percent to P27.1 billion with the robust growth and continued expansion of its postpaid customer base.

On the other hand, the company’s total subscriber base including the prepaid segment reached 38.5 million in 2013 or 16 percent higher compared to 33.1 million in 2012.

Macatangay attributed the consistent performance of the postpaid segment to the strong take-up of its fully-customizable mySUPERPLAN paired with the latest smartphones including the launch of the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c in the last quarter.

“The postpaid segment continues to scale up and provide solid contribution to the company’s overall mobile business. When it comes to postpaid, subscribers choose Globe and stay with Globe on the back of our postpaid plans that continue to attract subscriptions from the industry’s high-end prepaid subscribers as well as unique and new customers,” he stressed.

Likewise, the official said Globe has beefed-up its customer service and after-sales support systems with a dedicated hotline, remodeled stores, extensively-trained stores personnel and relationship managers, stronger partnerships with the world’s leading device manufacturers, and a better and faster network.

Globe expects a middle to high single-digit increase in service revenues this year after booking a nine percent growth in consolidated service revenues to P90.5 billion last year from P82.74 billion in 2012.

It reported a 42 percent jump in mobile browsing and other data revenues to P11.6 billion followed by broadband revenues that increased by 20 percent to P10.44 billion and fixed line data revenues that grew 13 percent to P4.69 billion.