In a virtual briefing on Tuesday, May 13, Globe Telecom showcased its first quarter (Q1) 2025 financial results, revealing that a challenging market environment resulted in decreases in revenue, core income, and other profitability measures.
Despite these declines, Globe also announced that many of their digital services experienced growth, select non-telco robustly contributed to revenue, and financial efficiency improved.
“We remain on track to deliver low to mid single-digit growth in terms of service revenue driven by a very resilient portfolio and customer-first mind set. While the first quarter had some headwinds, the signals we’re actually seeing point to a stronger set of quarters ahead,” Carl Raymond Cruz, Globe president and CEO, asserted during the briefing.
First, Globe addressed the downturns. The telecommunications giant reported P39.9 billion in consolidated gross service revenues, which represents a 3% decline year-on-year.
Notably, Globe reported a net income of P7.0 billion, which is a 3% increase from P6.8 billion in Q1 2024.
The Ayala-owned telecom provider, though, had substantial one-time gains in Q1, including a P2.6 billion gross gain from the dilution of Globe’s ownership of Mynt, the holding company of fintech giant, GCash. Globe’s sold an 8% stake in Mynt to the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group to produce this income.
Excluding non-recurring items, encompassing the sale of Mynt stock, the sale and leaseback of towers, as well as foreign exchange and mark-to-market adjustments, Globe’s core net income hit P4.5 billion for the first three months of 2025, which is 22% lower than the P5.8 billion recorded in Q1 2024.
Globe chalked up this core net income downturn to higher financing costs, depreciation, and interest expenses as well as other non-operating charges.
Another profitably measure that decreased is Globe’s consolidated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA). Globe’s Q1 2025 consolidated EBITDA stood at P20.8 billion, a decrease by 3% from P21.4 billion in the same period last year 2024. The company pins this decrease on this period’s lower revenues.
The telecom firm, however, maintained that the growth of many of their digital services, including consolidated data revenues, corporate ICT services, and fiber, demonstrate its sustainability based on their capability to adapt to customers evolving digital needs.
Globe spotlighted the fact that their total data revenues, which include mobile data, broadband and corporate data, rose to 87% of total gross service revenues, compared to 85% in 2024.
Globe focused specifically on mobile data. The company pointing out that even though challenges cropped up for this service in Q1 2025 — mobile data traffic fell, mobility was occasionally limited due to transport strikes and class suspensions, and high consumer prices affected discretionary spending on data — mobile data revenues doggedly grew.
From January until March 31 this year, mobile data garnered P24.1 billion in revenue, which is an increase 1% from the same period in 2024. It now claims 85% of total mobile revenues, up from 82% a year ago.
This increase was partly credited to the 3% year-on-year rise in mobile data users recorded in this period, demonstrating that Globe is expanding the reach of its digital services.
Globe also drew attention to their corporate ICT services revenue that derives from Business Application Solutions (BAS), cybersecurity, data center services, Big Data, and Internet of Things (IoT) offerings, which reported a 20% year on year upturn.
Moving onto fiber, Globe’s Fiber services expanded to 89.7% of total broadband revenues, improving from 85% in the previous year.
Furthermore, GFiber Prepaid (GFP) achieved a subscriber count of 400,000, which denotes a 53% quarter-on-quarter surge. These subscriber counts place GFiber as the fastest-growing prepaid fiber brand in the Philippines.
When speaking of non-telco revenues, Globe foregrounded Mynt. Globe’s share in Mynt’s equity earnings for Q1 2025 rose to P1.8 billion, an 86% increase from P962 million in Q1 2024 due to Mynt growing both its user base and profitability. This figure now accounts for 22% of Globe’s pre-tax net income, an 11% boost from the first quarter of 2024.
Globe additionally noted the strong revenue growth of two subsidiaries: shared services company Asticom and IT solutions provider Yondu. The performance of these subsidiaries helped offset the lessened contribution of Globe’s other subsidiary, advertising agency Adspark.
On top of the growth of certain digital services and the performance of select subsidiaries, Globe emphasized their financial efficiency.
While the consolidated Ebitda declined, Globe maintained a strong EBITDA margin of 52.1%, a figure that exceeds its full-year target of 50%. By surpassing their target, Globe’s Ebitda margin can be interpreted to show improved cost management.
Globe’s ongoing cost-efficiency initiatives also led to a 4% year-on-year reduction in total operating expenses, lessening from P19.8 billion in Q1 2024 to P19.1 billion in this period. These savings were driven by disciplined spending across nearly all expense line items.
Furthermore, Globe’s cash capital expenditures (capex) displayed a 38% year-on-year decline. From P13.7 billion in Q1 2024, it decreased to approximately P8.5 billion in Q1 2025.
“With our continued discipline in terms of execution, we’re holding the line on Ebitda margin, about 50%, while keeping our cash capex well below $1 billion. More importantly, we are on a clear path towards free cash flow positivity by 2025, a key marker of sustainability and long-term value. This gives us the ability to reinvest in innovation, improve on service delivery, and deepen our role in nation building,” Cruz stated as he closed the briefing
“As we navigate the road ahead, I remain hopeful and very optimistic about the role we can all play together in shaping a more inclusive and digitally empowered Philippines,” Cruz declared.
