“Don’t let anyone tell you differently,” said Ernest Cu, Globe Telecom CEO and president, “We are the brand leader.”
Pacing up and down a lighted T-shaped ramp with growth figures splashed on a video screen behind him, Globe Telecom Cu declared that the company now leads the telecommunication industry beyond the post-paid segment, Globe’s long-held niche.
The figure that counts, he said, is total market share of revenue, which was 32.9 percent for his company last year compared with 28.3 percent of its rival SMART Communications.
At the press conference of Globe’s 2014 annual stockholder’s meeting at the Fairmont Hotel in Makati, Cu walked the stage a la Steve Jobs in a casual but all-corporate presentation to trumpet that the telco had overtaken its competitor in a banner year.
(He wore a suit and a tie, though, and held a cordless microphone in his hand)
“We broke all records,” said Cu. He first announced that the price of Globe shares just closed at a new all-time high of P2,140 per share up from 22.3 percent of P1,750 at the start of the year. “And this is just April.”
Some figures earlier announced to stockholders as financial feats of 2014 in the mobile and broadband business:
• P99 billion in consolidated service revenue, higher that the previous mark of P90.5 million or a 9 percent year-on-year growth.
• A core net profit growth of 25 percent to a record level of P14.5 billion.
• P39 billion in registered total consolidated earnings before interest, taxes, deductions and amortization (EBITDA) or 8 percent higher than 2013.
AGAINST ODDS
A slide comparing the estimated gross revenues in 2014 of telco brands was the glove flung at competition.
It showed Globe earning P59 billion or a 32.9 percent share of the pie against SMART’s P50.7 billion or 25.3 percent share.
In the Ayala-led telco’s press statement, the achievement was described as a satisfying victory:
“Against mounting odds, we maintained a defiant and fighting stance against a long-time industry giant to achieve a phenomenal financial feat. From being a challenger brand, Globe has successfully waged a revolution in all fronts, from digital, technological and business, all the way to our corporate culture, as well as making our financial growth sustainable in the long run.”
The five percent spread in market share is “significant,” Cu told a news conference, because the measure is something Globe had decided back in 2009 was more meaningful than the raw number of mobile subscribers — which is 44 million Globe-users today up from 38.5 million last year.
“That’s not where the gain is to be made,” he said, but rather in “quality subscribers,” and services beyond voice and text, reflecting a shift to increasing smartphone penetration and network traffic to data usage.
Globe said mobile revenue which contributed 79 percent of consolidated revenues, grew 7 percent year-on-year from the past year’s P72.8 billion to P78.1 billion in 2014.
Revenue from mobile voice (44 percent of total mobile revenue) posted a 7 percent increase.
Texting is still there with mobile SMS (37 percent of revenue) earning P29.1 billion or 1 percent more than the previous year.
In postpaid service, Globe said it dominated this segment with P29.9 billion in revenue as well as a 58 percent market share in a two-player environment.
BATTLE IN DATA
After pioneering free Facebook, Globe continued to partner with global content providers like Spotify for music, Viber, and the NBA for an increasing social world.
Its latest partner, HOOQ, launched last month, makes available livestreaming video of over 10,000 Hollywood and Filipino films and TV shows from Sony, Warner Bros., ABS-CBN, GMA Network, Viva and Regal.
“The battleground will be in data. We are the preferred network of smartphone users,” said Cu.
A modernized Globe network carried a higher volume of data traffic of 87,000 terabytes of data, which is a huge 270 percent increase from the year before said Globe. This reflects heavier use of mobile browsing and more smartphone users among customers.
Mobile browsing and other data revenue earned P14.3 million in 2014 or a leap of 23 percent which Globe said was higher than competition which stood at P8.1 billion.
Network upgrades will continue for Long Term Evolution (LTE) TDD coverage and pans for a $250-million submarine cable to the United States.
A salute to the company’s “network revolution” came from JP Morgan, global investment bank, which Cu called unsolicited recognition. He said a survey by JP Morgan analysts showed that “Globe outperforms the other network in 90 percent of Philippine cities, including Manila.”
More than the hardware and customer-savvy packages, Cu said the gains reflect a “culture revolution” of people where employees are innovative, empowered and “happy.”
He said this was “extremely difficult” to build over five years.
The result was measured through a Watson Wyatt employment engagement index where Globe’s workforce scored 87, “one of the highest in the Philippine corporate world.”
The payoff was distilled in a hash tag announced yesterday: #1inMobile.
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