Globe Telecom Inc. on Wednesday said net income fell by 16 percent last year, mostly because of the impact of COVID-19 pandemic. 

The Ayala-led telco said net profit amounted to P18.62 billion in 2020, down from P22.28 billion in 2019. 

Core net income also dropped by 13 percent to P19.52 billion last year from P22.45 billion in 2019.

“2020 was a challenging year for Globe but we pulled through despite the COVID-19 pandemic and adverse economic environment. Our prudent financial management in these turbulent times allowed us to maintain strong cash flows, giving us the flexibility to continue to invest back into our network,” Ernest L. Cu, president and chief executive of Globe said.  

“We are proud of what we achieved this year particularly the significant gains in the network front. We have been heavily investing in our network infrastructure, spending over P60 billion in 2020 alone or more than P265 billion investment for the last five years, to support the government’s call for improvement in telco services in the country,” he added.

Globe’s consolidated service revenues amounted to P146.4 billion, 2 percent drop from the record level of P149 billion reported in 2019. 

Mobile business revenues amounted to P103.1 billion, down 7 percent from P111 billion in 2019 mainly due to the negative effects of the ECQ/MECQ period. 

Globe had a total mobile subscriber base of 76.6 million as of end December 2020. 

Home broadband revenues went up by 12 percent to P42 billion, while earnings from Corporate data amounted to P12.5 billion, lower by 3 percent. 

Cu added that the company will be spending P70 billion this year to provide  customers with superior network performance and quality of service as we aim to deliver first-world internet connectivity for every Filipino.

”As an enabler of the digital economy, we are fully committed to provide digital solutions to help more Filipinos adapt to an unfamiliar lifestyle, brought about by the pandemic, that all of us have had no choice but to adjust to,” Cu said. 

” We remain optimistic that our strategy to focus on fulfilling the needs of our customers, 

backed by our resilient and improved network, will drive our performance moving forward,” he added. 

This record-breaking capital expenditure supports Globe’s continuous modernization of its network to make 5G as well as fiber technology available to customers in more areas in the country. 

At present, Globe had a total of 11,529 4G/LTE sites, higher than the 10,135 in 2019. 

Globe deployed 5G sites in Metro Manila as well as certain cities in Visayas and Mindanao making 5G available in 1,045 areas in the country.