Globe Telecom net income declines to ₱3.8 billion

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 11) — The telecommunications giant Globe took a hit after its net income shrunk from ₱4.3 billion to ₱3.8 billion, despite a record-high of ₱31.1 billion in revenues for the first quarter of 2017.
The figure was down by 13 percent compared to the same time last year.
Globe's core net income slid to 12 percent, hitting ₱3.7 billion compared to its ₱4.2 billion income in 2016.  
The company attributed the loss to the impact of higher interest and depreciation expenses from infrastructure investments.
"We are seeing encouraging improvements this quarter, despite the temporary setback on profits as we continue to lay down the foundation to secure sustainable growth in the future," Globe President & CEO Ernest Cu said in a press statement from the company.
"Our continued aggressive network modernization and upgrades using the latest technologies are all geared towards enhancing our internet services, so that our customers can have a wonderful and seamless connectivity," he added.
In a release from Globe, the company noted that the income of the previous year did not contain charges from the assets it acquired from food and beverage conglomerate San Miguel Corporation (SMC). In particular, Globe had a share in equity losses and spectrum amortization.
Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co (PLDT), bought assets in SMC in May last year.
Globe calculated that its ₱31 billion in revenues was 4 percent higher than ₱30.0 billion in the same period last year and P62 million higher than all-time high revenues from the last quarter. It attributed the strong performance to solid revenue growth and subscriber expansion on both mobile and broadband.
The company earned ₱3.8 billion in home broadband revenues and ₱23.8 billion in mobile revenues, almost ₱10 billion of which came from mobile data.
Globe reported that its mobile subscriber base grew from 57.3 million to 58.6 million this year.