Fiber broadband player Converge ICT finally confirmed it is in discussion with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to bring its highly-touted Starlink satellite broadband project in the country, but stressed that the service is unlikely to be rolled out this year.
During its first quarter media briefing on Monday, May 17, Converge ICT founder and CEO Dennis Anthony Uy said the company is in close coordination with the US company in preparation for the eventual launch of the satellite broadband service.
Uy, however, said the roll-out is still far from ready and that SpaceX needs to deploy more satellites to provide decent speed to its potential subscribers. He said the earlier pronouncement of SpaceX that it will bring Starlink in the country in the third quarter is no longer feasible.
“I don’t think that’s possible,” he said when asked by Newsbytes.PH during the online press event.
The executive said Converge ICT is actually talking to a number of satellite broadband providers and not just to SpaceX. “This is in our pipeline. But right now, we’re focusing on expanding our fiber broadband rollout,” Uy said.
Cignal, the satellite TV operator of telco giant PLDT, launched last week its own satellite broadband service for remote areas of the country. Industry observers noted, however, the high cost of the connection kit (composed of satellite dish and modem) at P36,000 and installation fee of P6,000, as well as the pricey monthly subscription fee that starts at P6,500 for 2Mbps speed.
During the briefing, Converge ICT said it reached almost 1,182,000 residential subscribers by the end of the quarter. As of March 31, the fiber broadband firm said it nationwide network reached more than 7.1 million homes, on track to reach its target to cover approximately 55% of households in the Philippines by 2025.
Revenues from its residential business more than doubled from P2,287 million in the first quarter of 2020 to P4,797 million in the same period of 2021, driven by a 92% YoY growth in subscriber base coupled with an 8% improvement in residential average revenue per user.
Residential subscribers grew to almost 1,182,000 from 615,466 as of March 31, 2020. Converge said it captured 48% market share of fixed broadband net adds among the three largest broadband operators in the Philippines, representing an increase in fixed broadband market share from 19% in March 2020 to 27% in March 2021.
On the other hand, enterprise revenues grew slightly by almost 2.2% YoY, from P734 million to P749 million due to the impact of the pandemic on the various businesses in the country, which started around March 2020. However, the launch of “flexiBiz” offering allowed the company to grow its SME customers, resulting in its overall enterprise customer base increasing from 10,378 unique customers to 12,400 as of March 31, 2021.
