Globe not yielding mobile leadership

By Emmie V. Abadilla

Ayala-led GlobeTelecom Inc. took over the country's mobile market leadership from Smart Communications Inc. of tycoon Manny V. Pangilinan seven years ago and does not intend to give it up.

"We are confident we have the right strategies in place to defend this position in the coming years,” Ernest Cu, Globe Group President and CEO declared Wednesday, Aug. 16.

“I believe we have kept this leadership position in the industry for quite some time already. We captured revenue leadership back in 2016, or seven years ago, and have never ceded that position since," he underscored.

Specifically, Globe kept the revenue market share (RMS) lead over Smart since the fourth quarter of 2016 and has never looked back since.

At no point since it first overtook Smart has Globe ever slipped back, the latter maintained in its statement.

In fact, the telco has grown the margin in the last 27 quarters in a row or about seven years.

"Globe has led all the way, as (Smart) the erstwhile incumbent’s RMS never returned to the 50 percent level since the quarter it relinquished market leadership," said Cu.

So far, Globe's second quarter 2023 revenue market share of 54.6 percent, driven by the rally of its prepaid brands, was the highest the telco recorded since the pandemic.

It was also the largest margin against its competitor since the Covid crisis began. 

Globe's mobile revenues recovered as the economy re-opened and demand for mobile data returned.

The mobile networks' war has been ongoing for decades. 

In its own statement just the day before, on Aug. 15, PLDT and Smart President and CEO Alfredo S. Panlilio said as of last monitoring, the final SIM registration figures from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) showed Smart has narrowed the gap in terms of market share and subscribers with Globe, its nearest competitor, from over 20 million to just 1.2 million.

Globe registered 53.727 million SIMs as of July 30, 2023, the end of the seven-month SIM registration and five-day grace period. 

The figure accounts for 99 percent of Globe's active subscriber base and indeed, 1.2 million higher than Smart.

Smart registered 99 percent of its active users and now intends to recapture its leadership position in mobile subscribers, according to Panlilio.

Smart was the only provider to gain SIM share during the SIM Registration campaign, the only one to hit the government's initial target of 70 percent, reaching close to 80 percent, he pointed out.

“At Globe, the number of customers we have is just a by-product of our overall goal, which is to keep revenue market share leadership in the industry," Cu remarked, in an apparent swipe at Smart.

"This is the metric that most of our executives are measured by, including myself,” added Cu.

“Globe’s mobile leadership is indisputable on all fronts, from revenue market share to subscriber count. We have sustained our supremacy over the last seven years, through the pandemic and the SIM registration process," Darius Delgado, Head of Globe’s Consumer Mobile Business reiterated.

"This is because of our inclusive and life-enabling Mobile services, first-to-market innovations, and our ecosystem of digital solutions that bring value to our connectivity offers. This is true, holistic Mobile leadership that only Globe can deliver,” he concluded.