Telecom firms see the country’s home broadband market nearing saturation but are still expected to expand their networks and to improve service offerings to keep and grow their subscribers.
Issa Guevarra-Cabreira, Globe Telecom Inc. chief commercial officer, said in a virtual financial press briefing yesterday the postpaid fiber broadband market is almost fully saturated and growth is slowing down.
“…you are seeing that across all the operators, it’s across industry… that the postpaid fiber broadband category is actually slowing down, almost at full saturation already… despite the good Globe performance posted on the fiber front, specific to the fiber segment that’s maturing,” she said.
With Globe’s increased fiber footprint, postpaid fiber subscribers and revenues posted 64 percent and 108 percent growth, respectively, year-on-year. The home broadband business slid further in the third quarter, bringing its total revenues for the first nine months of 2022 to P20.5 billion from P22.4 billion a year earlier.
Globe’s total home broadband subscriber count now stands at 2.7 million, down by 27 percent year-on-year. Home prepaid wifi data traffic declined to only 355 petabytes in the first nine months of 2022 from 628 petabytes a year ago.
Cabreira said Globe shifted its fiber offering to the prepaid market with the TMBayan Fiber WiFi service which is now available in 600 sites, from 200 sites when it launched last August.
“As of November 11, we have 600 sites for TMBayan fiber and we see it continuing to expand further in the first half of 2023. What we’re seeing is to shift the fiber offering from what is already the nearing saturating postpaid market to now serve our prepaid fiber,” she said.
Meanwhile, Converge ICT Solutions Inc. said the fiber home broadband market is approaching saturation but it remains focused on the untapped markets in Visayas and Mindanao.
“Today, as far as A, B and C (home broadband market) it is approaching saturation. These are people who can afford based on plan P1,500 and above. In the near term, we are seeing some pressure on the target market, in terms of their ability to allocate money for this kind of service, which is very important anyway,” Jesus Romero, Converge chief operating officer, told reporters during the company’s virtual financial briefing last week.
For now, Romero said, the company’s focus is the underserved markets in Visayas and Mindanao as Luzon is pretty well covered.
As of end September this year, Converge’s residential customers stood at 1.84 million, 16 percent higher than the same period last year.
