Globe Telecom is not yet keen on selling its telco towers as common tower companies have yet to scale up their operations, officials of the Ayala-led telco said recently.
Globe announced in February 2018 that it was looking to sell its tower assets to an independent tower company, as the government then drafted plans for common telco towers.
But Globe chief finance officer Rizza Maniego-Eala said the company “paused” on this initiative as “tower companies really need to set up their operations properly in the Philippines, and also to scale up.”
“The ability to scale for us is not yet there,” Eala said during Globe’s online briefing on its second quarter results.
Eala said that so far the number of cell sites built by independent tower companies for Globe was “not significant.”
Globe’s rival PLDT, said last week that it was considering selling some of its towers that were deemed “not strategic.”
But Eala said Globe was not ruling out monetizing its passive assets, which include its towers.
Globe senior vice president Joel Agustin meanwhile said the company expects tower companies “to gain momentum in the coming months.”
He noted that the majority of the cell sites that Globe is building are already in the civil works and tower erection phase.
The telco said it has built 641 cell sites this year. It earlier said it plans to install at least 2,000 new cell sites in 2021.
Globe posted a net income of P13 billion in the first 6 months of 2021, higher by 13 percent compared to the same period last year, it said Friday.
The company said it has already spent a total of P43.3 billion in capital expenditure as of June.
The Ayala-led telco’s total mobile subscribers reached 81.7 million while its broadband subscribers totaled 4.2 million, it said in a disclosure.