Unusual businesses of 2021

Three big businesses stood out in 2021 for me: Mynt, Monde Nissin, and Converge. Two are in telecommunications, one in food. Because of or despite the pandemic, all have made remarkable strides in pursuing expansion plans during the last two years.

As most Filipinos are still unaware, Mynt owns GCash, the mobile wallet service provider that now has now some 48 million subscribers, a number that has more than doubled from pre-pandemic 2019. Also a laudable accomplishment is its expansion of merchant and seller partners, from just 63,000 to 2.5 million over the last two years.

Mynt, formerly named Globe Fintech Innovations, got a big boost in 2017 from its partnership with Ant Group, which operates the world’s largest digital payment system called Alipay. Ant and Globe Telecommunications own 40 percent each of Mynt, and the remaining 20 percent by Ayala Corp. and other new investors.

In successive calls for new investments, Mynt reached unicorn status this year in the local fintech startup environment. The company’s solid business expansion program is on track to bringing digital financial tools to more Filipinos, which should be decisive in accelerating economic growth.

Thanks to GCash, the Philippines is now regarded as one of the fastest growing digital economies in the region. This year, Mynt expects to generate P3 trillion in gross transactions, triple what it had reported in 2020.

SEA’s largest listing in foods

First started in 1979, Monde Nissin is regarded as a Philippine-based global company engaged in food products. In case you missed it, Monde manufactures the ubiquitous Lucky Me! instant noodles, which is popular in nearly all households in the country.

Lucky Me!, though, is not the only Monde Nissin product. In 2001, Monde acquired M.Y. San Biscuit, manufacturer of famous household brands like SkyFlakes, Fita, and M.Y. San Grahams.

Overseas, Monde took interest in various food manufacturing companies. In 2016, Monde entered into a joint venture with Nippon Indosari to form Sarimonde, which later acquired Walter Bread, a big player in the local packaged bread industry.

Monde has likewise noteworthy partnerships with other food brands here and abroad. It has a significant interest in Mama Sita, famous for Filipino sauces and mixes. Overseas, Monde bought UK-based Quorn Foods in 2015, a market leader in the local meat alternative foods industry.

Monde’s solid foothold in the food business helped tremendously in successfully going public, raising as much as $1 billion, and making it the country’s largest initial public offering (IPO) and the largest listing of a food and beverage company in Southeast Asia.

For the third quarter of 2021, Monde reported its strongest growth finish on consolidated revenues ever despite all the problems associated with the pandemic. All in all, it’s been a remarkable journey for a Filipino company.

Full fiber

Not least is Converge ICT Solutions, noted as the country’s leading full fiber data network and internet service provider. Founded in 2007, the company now boasts of a presence in over 440 municipalities and cities in the Philippines, thanks largely to its 90,000 kilometers of fiber backbone.

Like Mynt, Converge has experienced phenomenal growth because of the pandemic. Residential subscribers doubled this year to about 1.6 million, reflecting a dogged push by the company to bring broadband connectivity to the underserved and unserved parts of the country. It is now feverishly trying to accomplish its goal of bringing high-speed fiber connectivity to 55 percent of Philippine households by 2023.

Last year, even in the midst of a raging pandemic, Converge still managed to raise $600 million from an IPO, a lower-than-expected funding pitch, but one that will still come in handy to finance further expansion of its network across the country.

This year, Converge announced a tie-up with Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite Internet service, which is seen to augment the current land-based fiber network. Of course, how satellite connectivity will pan out – as with most Musk initiatives – is something that deserves watching.

Long recovery road

The year 2021 will be remembered as a trying year for a sizeable number of Philippine enterprises and entrepreneurs that attribute their resilience to some quick thinking and lots of luck in being able to surmount all the unusual curveballs that the pandemic had spawned.

It is also a year when many of our micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) have been pushed to bankruptcy or forced to downsize in order to keep afloat. The long lockdowns had been too harsh, protracting their business recovery well past 2022; that is, if the pandemic does end soon.

Airlines, with their huge debts and operating expenses, were hardest hit, although MSMEs in the travel and tourism industry could very well have experienced the same degree of pain. Thousands of restaurants and bars unable to shift to a digital platform gave up their leases, hoping to reopen during better times.

The entertainment industry and its workers and talents, many who enjoyed lucrative salaries, went off track; they too are also looking forward to the return of more normal broadcasting, and the reopening of more movie houses and performance theatres.

Thus, we end 2021 with hope that a recovery road will be more visible. With all the warnings about the perils that the Omicron variant can bring, business has only but one recourse, and this is to brace itself from a further onslaught.

Here’s wishing all our online and print readers a less stressful 2022 as we open our minds to positive action in the face of future adversities. May prosperity be bestowed on us, not only in the coming year, but for many more years ahead.

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Should you wish to share any insights, write me at Link Edge, 25th Floor, 139 Corporate Center, Valero Street, Salcedo Village, 1227 Makati City. Or e-mail me at [email protected]. For a compilation of previous articles, visit www.BizlinksPhilippines.net.