Converge ICT Solutions Inc. hopes to grow its prepaid subscriber base to 3 million in as early as three years, with the segment expected to become much bigger in base than postpaid fiber broadband.
In a press briefing on Thursday, Converge President Grace Uy said the group plans to put “prime focus” on expanding the company’s new service called Surf2Sawa, the company’s prepaid fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) sachet plan, which targets the lower-income markets.
For 2023, Converge hopes to reach 120,000 prepaid subscribers by end-December.
“We hope to get the first millionth subscriber in maybe two more years. Give us around 2025. We should hit our first one million subs in the prepaid segment. So by then, that should give us a much more significant contribution,” she said.
In “three to five years,” Grace said, the base could reach as much as 3 million subscribers.
The company expects the prepaid segment to contribute as much as “P500 million” to its top line this year.
By June this year, Converge intends to fully launch its prepaid offering Surf2Sawa to the lower-income market, which accounts for approximately 9.3 million households.
In the first three months of the year, Converge booked a 10-percent increase in net income to P2.17 billion, from P1.97 billion the year prior, as it continued to post strong revenue growth from both its residential and enterprise segments.
Revenues reached P8.64 billion in the first quarter, a 12-percent growth from P7.75 billion. Broken down, the residential business took the lion’s share at P7.40 billion, a 9-percent increase from P6.81 billion, and enterprise business at P1.24 billion from P935 million, a 33-percent surge.
Converge continued to expand its residential subscriber base with net additions reaching 43,000, with postpaid subscribers accounting for 67 percent and prepaid fiber subscribers consisting of the remaining 33 percent of the net subscriber additions.
As of the first quarter, Converge has 1.9 million postpaid and nearly 30,000 prepaid FTTH subscribers.
“Our commitment to providing world-class broadband services, coupled with our strategic investments in our network infrastructure, has enabled us to post positive first-quarter results. Converge is well-positioned to be the preferred internet service provider of customers as we continue to focus on reaching the unserved and underserved markets,” said Converge Co-Founder and CEO Dennis Anthony Uy.
