Philippine mobile telephone operator GlobeTel, in which Singapore Telecom is a joint venture partner with local conglomerate the Ayala Corp, has turned in a much healthier bottom line than analysts had predicted for the first nine months of the year. Net profit was up 130% year-on-year to 651m pesos ($17m) on revenue that rose 75% to 6.5bn pesos ($171m). The company’s shares rose 7.3% on the Manila Stock Exchange after the results were published.
Although primarily a mobile operator, GlobeTel also has to provide a fixed-line service in Manila as part of its license agreement. Company president Gerardo Ablaza said the profit leap was due to a near 300% jump in subscribers to 680,000, the bulk of them cell phone users. This makes GlobeTel the country’s second largest mobile operator after Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT) subsidiary Smart Communications.
