Globe Telecom’s profit for the first nine-months of 2022 was driven by higher non-operating income following the sale of data centre and tower assets, with the top-line benefitting from rising prepaid user numbers.

Net profit grew 48 per cent from a year earlier to PHP26.5 billion ($463.5 million) due to lower non-operating expenses and one-off assets sales.

President and CEO Ernest Cu stated in its earnings release he believed Globe Telecom’s decision to expand growth opportunities through non-telecoms services “paved the way for us to remain relevant and competitive”.

Consolidated operating revenue rose 3 per cent to PHP118 billion, driven by growth in mobile, enterprise and non-telecoms services.

Mobile service revenue increased 3 per cent to PHP80.6 billion, with an 8 per cent rise in data to PHP62.5 billon offsetting declines in voice and SMS.

Prepaid ARPU fell 4 pent to PHP97 and post-paid grew 1 per cent to PHP846.

It’s prepaid user base grew 3.9 million for a total of 85.4 million, with post-paid steady on 2.5 million.

Capex increased 14 per cent to PHP74.4 billion. The company said it upgraded 10,600 sites to LTE and deployed 1,887 5G sites nationwide.

Corporate data revenue grew 21 per cent to PHP12.5 billion on gains in cloud services and data centre.

Home broadband sales fell 9 per cent to PHP20.5 billion.

Non-telecoms revenue from a number of subsidiaries grew 101 per cent to PHP2.8 billion.