GLOBE EYES $850-900M CAPEX PER YR UNTIL 2019

AYALA-LED Globe Telecom plans to keep its capital spending at around $850 million to $900 million per year over the next two years despite reporting a 15 percent drop in core said on Tuesday.

The telco last month announced it was setting its capital expenditure for 2018 at $850 million to focus bolstering its data network facilities.

Asked if capex will stay at the same level next year, Globe Presi reporters spending will be “around two years to address market demand for fast internet service.

“Historically, if you look at the spending trends, you can project. You see business and data growth. Logical for us but we don’t know the number. That is depending on what we see the market needs,”

“We do spend as necessary. If you look at the numbers, we went $750 [million] in 2015, $1 billion in 2016, $850 [million] in 2017 and projecting over $850 to $900 [million] in 2018,” Cu added.

Globe on Tuesday said its core net income for 2017 dropped 15 percent to P13.5 billion from the P16 billion recorded in 2016 due to the “full year impact of the SMC ( San Miguel Corp.) telco asset acquisition.”

It said consolidated service revenues rose 6 percent to P127.9 billion driven by mobile and home broadband businesses.

Mobile revenues rose by 7 percent to P98.5 billion versus the P92.3 billion in 2016 on the back of continuous demand for mobile data.

Its home broadband business kept its momentum with revenues of P15.6 billion, up 7 percent, with an increasing subscriber base of 1.3 million or a 15 percent growth from the previous year.

Its corporate data business also grew by 4 percent to P10.3 billion from the P9.9 billion recorded in 2016.

Rizza Maniego- Eala, Globe set its revenue guidance at “low” single- digit growth for 2018.

“In 2017, revenues grew by six percent and obviously, 2018, we’re coming off a higher base from that six percent growth. While we do expect our corporate and broadband businesses to grow faster, there will be growth in mobile. Growth in 2017 was also not that large due to base [effect]. So, the guidance we have for this year is four percent. Last year, our guidance was mid single digit, that’s is low single digit,” she said.

Turning to capex financing, she said the telco may resort to some of its spending requirements for this year.

Last year, Globe secured term loan facilities from various banks. In February 2017, it inked a P7-billion P7-billion six-year term loan facility with the Development Bank of the Philippines. This was followed by the signing of another P8-billion loan deal with BDO in April.

In August, the company announced it secured a $155-million (P7.9 billion) term loan facility with Metropolitan Bank & Trust Company.