After a strong 2024 performance capped off by earning Ookla’s titles of “Best Fixed Network” and “Fastest Fixed Network” for the second half of last year, fiber broadband firm Converge is bullish about maintaining its momentum due to its substantial growth and heightened efficiency in 2025’s first quarter.
Converge officials highlighted the company’s impressive growth, reporting in its Q1 2025 financials that consolidated revenues jumped by 13.2% to P10.8 billion and net income rose by 18.3% to P3 billion year-on-year.
Converge’s revenue spike was triggered by an expanding subscriber base in both its residential and enterprise segments.
The company saw revenues surge to P9.1 billion in its residential segment, up by 11.5% year-on-year as 140,000 new residential subscribers were brought on. This new wave of subscribers brought Converge’s total residential subscriber count to 2.7 million by end of period.
Furthermore, enterprise revenues swelled to P1.7 billion, up by 22.9% versus Q1 2024. This growth was backed by double-digit increase in all enterprise segments’ revenue from wholesale, to enterprise and corporate, to small and medium enterprises. The wholesale customer base in particular shot up by 54%.
“During the first three months of the year, we started strong with double-digit top-line growth in both operating segments and even healthier consolidated profitability margins as we see consistent industry growth amid prevailing market competition,” emphasized Converge president and co-founder Maria Grace Uy.
Dennis Anthony Uy, CEO and co-founder of Converge, credited the company’s widening customer base to its fresh offerings and continuous improvement of existing services.
He specifically held up Converge’s recent partnership with satellite telecommunications provider SpaceX for Starlink, as an example of its new services. Converge announced last April that it is an authorized Starlink reseller targeted towards enterprises in the country’s remote areas.
As an authorized reseller, Converge offers end-to-end satellite solutions from installation, to network management, to maintenance. Additionally, the company will be bundling Starlink’s satellite technology with its own fiber network offerings to ensure business continuity and redundancy in case one service goes down.
On top of its revenue and income growth, Converge highlighted its increased operational efficiency indicators during the briefing.
The company showcased its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), which grew by 14.8% to P6.7 billion in Q1 2025. This EBITDA displays an industry-leading EBITDA margin of 62%, which Converge attributes to prudent cost management and improved operating efficiency.
Its Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) also rose slightly to 18.4% by Q1 2025 from 18.3% last quarter, which testifies to the company’s efficient use of capital.
Another sign of their increased operational efficiency was its faster average repair time for network outages and accelerated ticket resolution. A major contributor to this improvement was the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into its operations.
By leveraging AI to more quickly identify the fix required and dispatch the right people, compared to the previous quarter, means repair time in Converge’s backbone infrastructure went down by 26% and outside the plant, it decreased by 9%.
Similarly, its recently integrated, AI-powered workforce management system sped up ticket resolution by matching tickets to the nearest technician with the appropriate skill set. The average ticket resolution time fell by 11% and the resolution rate in five days climbed by 14% contrasted to the last quarter.
In terms of capital expenditure (capex), Converge spent P2.6 billion in this first quarter, roughly 10% of its expected P25 billion estimated expenditures of the year.
Converge predicted significantly higher capex this year due to one-time, big-ticket expenses including investments in international, subsea cable systems and data centers as well as the financing of port deployments and modems to support their growing customer base.
“The momentum is still quite strong in the first quarter of 2025. We hit the ground running this year and we are confident in sustaining the gains last year. We continue to improve on our fundamental products while also pushing aggressively on introducing new digital solutions for Filipinos,” asserted Uy during the briefing.
