Globe peddles prepaid plans to boost broadband sales

MANILA, Philippines— Ayala-led Globe Telecom has unveiled its strategy of leaning on prepaid users to create a new leg of growth in its fixed wireless or home broadband line: a new set of no-lock up pay as you use products.

“It does not make sense that you would only offer postpaid plans in the broadband space when most of the customers in the country are on prepaid. At home, most customers only pay for electricity and water in postpaid manner,” said Globe at Home Senior Vice President Martha Sazon.

Sazon added that Globe is aware of the prevalence of the “sachet kind of economy” in the Philippines and adopted it in its prepaid internet product. 

The telco added 260,000 home broadband subscribers in 2016 and is targeting an additional 400,000 subscribers by the end of 2017, to eventually 2 million new subscribers by 2020.

New prepaid and no-lockup plans

To cater to this market, Globe announced a trio of new prepaid plans backed by P1999-Globe at Home WiFi modem that, it said, has 50% stronger WIFI coverage compared to pocket MyFi’s modems.  

The new prepaid HomeSURF plans start at 1 gigabyte (GB) for P15 which prepaid users can use on top of their existing P50 GoSURF50 subscriptions. There is also 10GB for P349 valid for 10 days, and and  15GB for P599 valid for 30 days.  

These are Globe at Home’s first prepaid products. Previously, the default option for customers looking for broadband at home would be the pocket Myfi’s routers.

“On mobile, 95% of subscribers are prepaid so if you are prepaid on mobile, doesn’t it make sense that at home you should be on prepaid as well?” Sazon said.

Globe also revealed high speed broadband Fiber or DSL postpaid plans with speeds of up to 50 megabits per second (Mbps) starting at P499 for the first 3 months, with higher-priced plans providing more speed and data.  

These plans do not come with the usual “lock-up period” of two years, Sazon said. She added that after the 3-month period, customers can maintain that plan, choose a higher plan, or discontinue the service free of charge. Customers need only to pay a one-time modem fee.

The telco also noted that those who prefer to discontinue their subscription within the first 15 days will get a 100% refund and their modem fee back upon the return of the device.

While relatively new to the broadband space compared to rival PLDT Incorporated, Globe’s fixed wireless or broadband line is its fastest-growing division, growing by 22% and accounting for rveneues of P7.7 billion as of June 2017.

Sazon is also optimistic about the future, noting that the broadband penetration in the country right now is only between 14% to 16%.  – Rappler.com