Globe data traffic up 49% to 641M GB in first 9 months of 2018

MANILA, Philippines – Globe reported that its data traffic for the first 9 months of 2018 grew by 49% to 641 million gigabytes of 641 petabytes, compared to the same period last year. 

The growth in Globe’s data traffic mirrors the growing data consumption levels as users turn more to digital platforms for various reasons – communication, information, entertainment and business, to name some. Globe’s own growth reflects its LTE cell site deployment efforts this year, saying that it has rolled out “close to 12,000 LTE cell sites” as of the end of September 2018. It started the year with 10,300 LTE sites – about a quarter of its 40,522 total, which includes non-LTE sites. 

By comparison, Smart at the end of June 2018, had 12,600 LTE sites, a 45% increase from the 8,700 at the beginning of the year. 

Globe says that it has been “fully utilizing their 700 MHz, 2600 MHz, and other spectrum assets,” making its “LTE coverage present in about 90% of cities and municipalities nationwide.”

“This development affirms our business strategy that sustained investments in enhancing network capacities and coverage will enable us to keep our competitive edge in the data space and allow us to sustain our growth momentum,” said Globe president and CEO Ernest Cu.

“We intend to continue investing on LTE to meet the demands of our customers for streaming and always-on digital services,” Cu added.

Globe also reported that from January to end of September 2018, it  invested around P32.5 billion in capital expenditures to meet data demands. Globe said that about 78% of the total expenditures were allocated specifically to data-related services. In the same period, it had amassed 65.4 million mobile customers, a 10% increase from the same period last year.

Mobile data is also said to be the top contributor to Globe’s total mobile business in the same period, with revenues amounting to P38.7 billion. – Rappler.com