DATA consumption in the Philippines is expected to surge in the coming years, as the appetite of Filipinos for on-demand video, electronic games and multimedia content also continues to grow larger.
Given this, Globe Telecom Inc. President Ernest L. Cu said data will continue to serve as a key driver to his group’s revenue growth in the next few years.
The rising demand for data offers a huge business potential which the company capitalizes on beginning with relevant and affordable product offerings and enhanced content portfolio in partnership with global content providers such as Disney, Netflix, Cartoon Network, Sports Illustrated and Fox Network.
Just recently, Globe partnered with international gaming companies Mineski, Riot Games and Garena to accelerate e-gaming and e-sports industry in the country.
“People have started shifting their habits. Lifestyles are getting more digital each day. From standard messaging, Filipinos are now spending more time on their devices connecting through social media, downloading mobile apps, playing video games, and viewing more content,” Cu said.
For the first three months of the year alone, mobile data already emerged as top contributor to the P25.5 billion total mobile revenues of Globe, accounting for 48 percent—surpassing voice and text.
The trend is expected to continue as smartphone penetration in the country is projected to grow to 70 percent in 2018, from only 40 percent in 2015.
Globe also registered a 37-percent surge in data traffic from 131 petabytes for the first quarter of 2017 to 180 petabytes in the same period this year.
One petabyte is equal to about 3.4 years of 24/7 full HD video recording.
“We are confident that consumers’ appetite for data will continue to grow in the future,” Cu said.
He noted that with this, Globe continues to invest in its 4G and LTE networks.
The company is currently on track in fulfilling its commitment to deploy LTE services nationwide by the end of 2018 using the 700 megahertz (MHz) and 2600 MHz frequencies.
Globe Telecom’s corporate-data business, likewise, posted P2.6 billion in revenues for the first quarter of the year mainly due to the increasing demand for connectivity and business solutions, resulting to higher customer-base expansion, circuit-count increase and higher usage.