Globe sets 2017 capex budget at $750m

The Philippines’ Globe Telecom has allocated a capex budget for 2017 of around $750 million as the operator invests to expand its data network.

The operator will spend the majority of its capex budget for the year on data network expansion, including investing towards its target of providing ultra-fast fiber broadband to 2 million homes by 2020.

Globe also plans to take advantage of the spectrum it acquired from the joint purchase of San Miguel Corporation’s telecoms assets last year by investing heavily in LTE.

But the $750 million figure marks a significant planned reduction from the operator’s roughly $1 billion in capital expenditures last year.

The report cites Globe CEO Ernest Cu as stating that the reduction marks a rebalancing from 2016, when the company needed to borrow money to fund its network spending.

Cu told BusinessWorld Online that the operator’s priority with its capital investments will be revenue generation, which the company plans to achieve by focusing on high-value customers in order to improve ARPU.

This will be important in light of the agreement Globe and rival PLDT signed with the government late last year to reduce their fixed and mobile voice interconnection rates.