Globe Telecom, Inc. (GLO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for joining us for Third Quarter 2023 Analyst Briefing. We are happy to report that Globe continue to post sound operating and financial results in the first 9 months of 2023. Globe achieved a fresh record high quarterly revenue of PHP 40.7 billion, which were year-to-date revenues to PHP 121.1 billion, also [indiscernible]. This performance was made also more impressive given the challenge in the economic market of the company is operating in. The sustained revenue growth was driven by as usual, growth in mobile and corporate data, complemented by the robust contribution from our non-telco services. This top line growth coupled with our built in cost management, resulted in EBITDA reaching PHP 60.7 billion for the first 9 months of 2023, higher by 1% year-on-year. This figure is another record high for the company, an indication of the company's solid cost management strategies despite the inflationary pressures pushing costs up. Globe's EBITDA margin, which stands at 50% is tracking within our guidance for the full year. [indiscernible] for the third quarter of 2023 amounted to PHP 4.8 billion, stable quarter-on-quarter, while for the first 9 months of the year, normalizing on PHP 14.8 billion. Given these results, our Board of Directors approved the fourth quarterly cash dividend of PHP 25 per share, consistent with our declarations over the past few years, reiterating also our commitment to a sustainable dividend policy. We're also happy to share the following developments within the Globe group, each of which will be discussed a bit in detail later in the presentation. Firstly, Globe entered into an agreement with Mynt for a sale of a 77% stake in ECPay for PHP 2.31 billion, effectively normalizing the group's statement related businesses and ensuring the [indiscernible] the group's portfolio value. Secondly, on landmark sale and leaseback initiatives, Globe has cumulatively closed total of 4,123 towers as of end September, collecting gross proceeds of roughly PHP 53 billion. And lastly, STT GDC Philippines has completed its 1.2 megawatt data powers in a Makati City, while the construction for the 120 per megawatt STT [indiscernible] is on track for completion. It has also broken down earlier today on STT Cavite 2 and the second data center in the Cavite Campus. The company continues to reap the benefits of our strategic privilege from being a telco to a techco. Non-telco revenues grew by an impressive 44% year-on-year hitting an all-time high of PHP 4.1 billion for first 3 quarters of 2023 and accounting for 3.4% of total gross service revenues. This was driven by growth across all our subsidiaries where the ECPay and Asticom contributing the most during the period, followed by Adspark and Yondu. Note that this figure could potentially soften in the future following the closing of the ECPay transaction and resulting in the deconsolidation of its business from Globe's books and recognizing the top line figures of ECP as part of our share in equity earning business. We will be talking more about this transaction in the next slide. Meanwhile, our joint ventures and affiliates continue to grow contribution to the bottom line. Other net share in equity gains growing by 56% year-on-year to PHP 1.8 billion. In particular, we want to highlight that Globe's share in Mynt earnings continued its outstanding growth trajectory reaching PHP 1.62 billion in the first 9 months of 2023. This is more than double compared to the same period last year spiking by 149% or roughly 2.5x larger than the figure posted in the same period in 2022. Mynt continues to increase its positive contribution to Globe's bottom line and now impressively accounts for 6.4% of the group's net income before tax. Now getting into a bit more detail about the development of our portfolio businesses. We recently announced that Globe entered into an agreement with Mynt for the sale of its 77% stake in Electronic Commerce Payments Incorporated or ECPay for PHP 2.31 billion. ECPay's minority stakeholder is likewise party of agreement. This effectively make a transaction Mynt's full acquisition of ECPay. Upon closing, ECPay will have access to GCash's platform, enabling ECPay a better traverse the ever-evolving digital landscape for which GCash is a leader in. As for Mynt, it is expected to better harmonize the capabilities of both ECPay and GCash and enhance its product suite, enabling it to service MSME and enterprises customers better. This transaction exemplifies Globe's commitment to value maximization by streamlining its portfolio and enabling the realization of synergies within the group. During this initiative, Globe enables GCash to provide best-in-class services in the fintech space and further its mission to democratize financial access and improve the lives of Filipinos. Moving on to our mobile business. Total mobile revenues likewise stood at an all-time high of PHP 83.2 billion as of end September 2023, higher by 3% versus the same period last year. The stronger revenue growth of the prepaid plans is a testament to the relevance of the company's data-centric value for money offers, which allows our customers to enjoy world-class network quality and service despite the unexpected extension of a high inflationary environment. Mobile data revenues continued to grow, reporting a 3% year-on-year increase during the period and more than offsetting the continuing decline in mobile voice and SMS, which dropped by 11% and 10%, respectively. Mobile data traffic soar to 4,360 petabytes as of end September, improving by 30% year-on-year, driven by the consumption of high-bandwidth online videos and social media content via smartphones. Mobile data app too likewise grew, spiking by 38% year-on-year to 13.8 gigabytes per month. Our mobile data business now accounts for 81% of mobile revenues, up from 78% last year. On a quarterly sequential basis, total mobile revenues ended up by 2%. Globe's mobile customer base following the SIM card registration period, stood at 54.7 million as of September 30, 2023. Recall that the country went through a SIM card registration process earlier in the year and globally activated about 30 million SIMs, most of which were inactive users. Post this registration effort, those mobile are [indiscernible], prepaid [and TM] increased and are now closer to the true ARPU levels of Globe. On a year-on-year basis, prepaid ARPU increased by 25% to PHP 120, total amount of for TMs [indiscernible] 35% to PHP 84. Despite the increase, these reported ARPU still mathematically factor in the incubatory SCR numbers, given the calculated average subs for the period. Fully using the post-SCR sub numbers for rebate will jump up to PHP 161 or close to 70% increase from last year and TM ARPUs increased to PHP 116 or an 88% drop against the 9 months of '22 level. Given traffic only grew by 13% year-on-year, these high ARPU levels reflect the quality subscriber base of Globe and show the results of the market repair efforts as a company. On the other hand, the home broadband business closed the first 3 quarters of the year with PHP 19 billion in revenue from PHP 20.5 billion reported in the same period last year. The drop in the fixed wireless product was partly offset by the sustained expansion in postpaid fibers subscribers and revenues, which improved by a solid 2% and 18%, respectively. Fiber revenues are also driven by sustained ARPU as we focus on quality acquisitions. Meanwhile, the decline in fixed wireless access revenues and operating metrics has slowed down as expected this quarter with revenue dropping by only 1% this year versus the 4% decline posted in the second quarter of 2023. On the subscriber front, fixed wireless subscriber numbers also now reflect the impact of the SIM card registration exercise, which caused it to drop down to 600,000 as of end September. On GFiber Prepaid, following our official launch last July, we've been getting positive sentiments from our customers on the fully digital experience, affordability, good network experience as well as the convenience of loading via GCash. It's still in the early days, but we are encouraged by results of our rollout. We are, however, approaching this ramp up carefully and taking a more measured approach to customer acquisition and scaling this business properly with quality subscribers and what we internally call real in vendors or those [indiscernible] stay active in our fiber network longer. We intend to do this by leveraging on Globe superior distribution network as well as the group's deep knowledge of the prepaid consumer market. To date, our prepaid fiber offering has the highest reload rate and loader ARPU among all the prepaid brands of Globe, a testament of the quality of the company's acquired subscriber base. On the corporate data side, service revenues are still growing healthily as Globe continues to explore for optimal solutions to support its enterprise clients and provide more ways to embrace digital transformation. Corporate data revenues reached PHP 13.6 billion, outpacing last year's performance by 8%. This figure is another record high for the company and was mainly turned by the strong demand for ICT services, which grew by 20% year-on-year. Moving on to our capital expenditures. During the first 9 months of the year, Globe invested a total of PHP 54 billion for network expansion and enhancement. This is lower by close to 30% compared to the same period last year and is in line with our reinforced guidance of CapEx dropping to PHP 71.5 billion or USD 1.3 billion for the full year. As part of our commitment to return to free cash flow positive territory, the company has reprioritized purchase order issuances beginning 2023, made possible by the CapEx strategy the company employed in the past 3 years. As explained in our previous briefing, these purchase order appeal issuances are leading indicators for future CapEx payment levels and therefore, a significantly low PO issuance in 2023 will enable the planned official CapEx over the few years. Recall that Globe is coming out of a period of high deal issuances as part of its strategy of [ down loading ] the CapEx spend and given the opportunities brought about by [indiscernible] law. Through these opportunistic investments, Globe was able to roll out and expand its network in a very short period of time, something that was not possible to prior to aging dead phase surrounding site acquisitions. Furthermore, this strategy successfully delivered its goal of making Globe the country's most consistent and reliable network as well as allow the company to take an advantage of the favorable interest rate environment back then relative to where we are currently. Following this, in 2023, the company's efforts have now shifted to opportunistic capacity expansion through maximization of utilization of network investments as evidenced by the lower PO issued during the first 3 quarters of the year. The company's CapEx strategy has allowed us to now focus its spending and proceed with its network expansion in a measured and targeted way with the reduced PO issuances in 2023. The company is effectively reaping the benefits of strategy, which will allow us to return to more sustainable CapEx levels up not sacrificing network quality nor capacities. PO issuances in the first 9 months of the year are equivalent to roughly 28% of the average annual PO issuances these [indiscernible] years. These streamlined PO issuances will likewise allow us to get back to positive free cash flow territory as planned. Of the PHP 54 billion spent, about 91% was allocated for data requirements to ensure that our customers will be able to access the best digital solutions and connectivity hassle-free anytime. As a result of the strategy, we have begun reprioritizing our CapEx spending venture and especial network rollout. As mentioned in the past, both of these investments were made for our mobile network as we shed our focus on the fiber platform rollout and expansion to port utilization. We are also easing spending on 5G site rollouts given the lack of a viable use case amidst [various] market conditions. Nevertheless, to ensure quality network customer experience for our 5G users, we fired up 716 more 5G sites across the Philippines, increasing our 5G outdoor coverage to 97.67% of the National Capital Region and 92.06% of key cities in Visayas and Mindanao. As of September 2023, [Globe] built 833 new cell sites and upgraded 5,395 mobile sites to . As proof of the company's substantial investment in network, we're recognized by Ookla as the Most Consistent Fixed Broadband Provider in 33,000 cities and 2 provinces nationwide during the third quarter. This follows Globe's achievement in the previous quarter where it secured a top spot in 31 locations. Additionally, the company showed marked improvements in both download of upload speeds in 19 strategic locations during the period. Moving on to other recent developments within the Globe Group. As the ST Telemedia Global Data centers, Philippine [out of] needed 1.2 megawatt data hall in Makati city, which is the largest CB in the country. The data hall has capacity for around 100 [indiscernible] and can support loads between 5 kilowatts and 12 kilowatts. Operations are expected to commence this November. The data center is designed to [give standards] and uses in ecofriendly ventilation and air conditioning systems and uses energy [indiscernible] detachment system them and solar panels generate electricity. The facility offers an opportunity for businesses to enjoy the advantages of having colocation space and next-generation hyperscaler data center for a fraction of cost. The STT Cavite 2 product likewise build [ground] earlier today, November 6, [indiscernible] to offer 6 megawatts of capacity by 2027, increasing the total capacity of the Cavite campus to 13 megawatts. Meanwhile, construction of STT Fairview is on track for completion following its groundbreaking earlier this year. The Fairview campus initial phase of operations is slated for early 2025. For the combined capacity expansion of 5.2 megawatts set for Q3 this year, STT GDC Philippines is poised to surpass the capacity of most single data centers locally. This expansion is on the response to the high market demand and the ongoing digital transformation meeting the nation. Moving on to the main portion of our presentation. As GCash grows, we [indiscernible] all Filipinos whoever and wherever they are empowered by the largest digital ecosystem in the country. The true impact of GCash lies in its growing relevance being indispensable to Filipinos in their daily lives and being able to introduce digital financial services. As such, we have become the platform where the largest and most engaged user base for their active users, 5x and 10x more than that of the next e-wallet in terms of monthly and daily active users, respectively. This is as reported by data.ai or reputable third-party providers. We also doubled down our efforts to continue serving the underserved and unserved. Our lending offering being a real story of the natural inclusion. Our data shows that a majority of our borrowers come from lower socio-economic classes or aged 21 to 35, and over 60% of are women. We continue to impact millions of Filipino lives by providing financial services and improving financial literacy among the unbanked and underbanked. We have now provided loans to over 3.4 million unique borrowers disposing over PHP 100 billion of loan life to date. This was made possible through the innovative products such as GCredit, GLoan and GGives, which are all powered by our proprietary credit rating system, GScore. We have also introduced Sakto Loans, our new analytic product. Customers have expressed appreciation for how well suited it is for their needs as well as the convenient offers in terms of the permanent entailment. On insurance register platform, we have sold over 13.5 million life to date. We continue to offer a diversified array of insurance products, we recently launched our OFW insurance as well as the 101 medical plan in [indiscernible] registered paid to almost 9.1 million, a 3% growth year-on-year. We achieved providing both value and convenience and product offerings across our growing [indiscernible] partners. The [indiscernible] register base increased to 5.5 million by continuing to allow users to invest in various funds for [indiscernible] . For the recent launch of GCrypto and the pilot launch from GStocks, we aim to continue removing the barrier [indiscernible] through our digital platform. The key to GCash's success in the trust that our users have based in our company and the platform. That is why respecting and honoring this trust remains as our #1 priority. We continue to innovate in order to reinforce trust and security across our ecosystem through education, fortifying our platform and the launch of new products. We've doubled down our efforts to drive awareness on safety and security. Recently, we launched the GSave Pilot 2.0 campaign. This campaign focused on targeting mass Filipino users with a message focused on fishing where we educate the users to never share their M-PIN and OTP. We made sure that we were reaching the masses nationwide, shifting to digital-only to a digital and radio execution with localization and the dialects. We also strengthened our partnerships with government agencies, most recently with the SEC as well as support strategic alliances with the financial industry to double down and education of campaigns against cyber threats. We also launched the security feature on our platform, the [neos] compromised and modified devices from access in the app. These [device] are more commonly known as jailbroken or rooted devices that have undergone alterations, which pose susceptibility to account takeovers. To further our trust and security extender, we're also launching a new insured tech product Send Money [indiscernible]. This is the best embedded P2P insurance in the world. Best innovation and best interest in our Send Money use case and protects our users against possible scams including online shopping fraud, account takeover and other social engineering-related scams. Customers can be covered up to PHP 15,000 per month. While we have made headway in providing accessible financial services, we continue to find other ways to improve the daily lives of Filipinos whoever and wherever they are. In September, GCash launched GJobs in partnership with [indiscernible]. This is a job referral platform within the app, which aims to speed up the job matching process between employers and job seekers. It allows users to make a [indiscernible] to job posting and reward successful referrals. This is all in line with our vision of financial inclusion and helping Filipinos on their journey to financial stability and growth. We also continue to expand a holistic solutions and improving the lives of overseas Filipinos and their beneficiaries. We need simple and digitized financial solutions, not just in remittances, but also in securing their future. And that is what we provided to them. They can now send money back to their loved ones through P2P transfer, take control of where the money is sent spend through [paper and by load] and prepare for the future to GSave and GInvest. They can also stay in for through our [Pinoy channel]. GCash will even further in addressing travel, of Filipino travelers [indiscernible] and the new GCash Visa card, which [indiscernible] more than 200 countries with no service fee and competitive foreign exchange rates, [indiscernible] of conversion rates uninvited acceptance in millions of stores. We continue to strive boldly to our vision of financial inclusion, providing access to financial services and in doing this, making a difference in the lives of Filipinos everywhere. In line with that, here's a short video introducing the new GCash Visa card. [Presentation]

Moving on to the financial portion of our presentation. To summarize the earlier points, gross service revenues for the first 9 months came in at a record high of PHP 121.1 billion, higher by 3% year-on-year on the back of a sustained solid demand for data-related services and the healthy contribution of our non telco revenues. Coupled with the tempered increase in operating expenses in subsidy, our EBITDA improved by 1% year-on-year to PHP 70 billion, or 50% of service revenues. Normalized net income for the period stood at close to PHP 14.9 billion, while core net income, which excludes the impact of nonrecurring charges and foreign exchange and mark-to-market charges amounted to PHP 15.8 billion. On a sequential basis, our third quarter revenues grew by 1%, while operating expenses and subsidy remained stable. These had a combined effect of pushing our EBITDA higher by 1% year-on-year. Normalized net income remained stable for the quarter at PHP 4.8 billion, while core net income was 1% higher. Now delving a bit further into our costs, total operating expenses and subsidy increased slightly in the first 3 quarters of 2023 compared to the same period last year. However, with our continued efforts on cost controls, expenses related to marketing and subsidy dropped by 14% year-on-year to PHP 4 billion, while lease expenses declined by 28%. We also saw PHP 669 million drop in provisions during the period. These declines, however, were partially offset by the increase in interconnect fees, which grew by 6% year-on-year, network costs, which were higher by 14%, and services and other OpEx which grew by 8%. Nonetheless, the consistent year-on-year increase in our revenues allowed for business to [indiscernible] higher. Our EBITDA margin is tracking within our full year guidance. On a quarter and quarterly basis, our OpEx remains stable. [indiscernible], cost and marketing subsidies mostly offset by the PHP [ 455 ]million drop and costs related to our net worth. Provisions likewise declined by 3% sequentially, while services and other OpEx contracted by 6%. [indiscernible] meanwhile 10%. As mentioned earlier in the presentation, these results have been delivered despite significant upward pricing pressures on a lot of our expense line items, in particular, those related to keeping our network up and running. Against this backdrop, the company's cost transfer efforts delivered significant gains and allowed for the EBITDA that we posted in the first 9 months of the year. As an update to the market on our sale and leaseback initiatives, the turnover of our tower assets to the buyers continues to progress. To date, we have turned over 4,123 sites. For MIDC a turnover 1,149 towers which is 53% of our total portfolio, while we have covered 2,094 towers or 59% to Frontier. [indiscernible] tower we turned over an aggregate 710 towers or 53% of its total portfolio. And for Unity, we have transferred 170 towers equivalent to 38% of the total portfolio. As of September 2023, we have collected gross proceeds of PHP 53 billion. During the period, we encountered a few unexpected impediments that led to the slowdown of tower closings. These include issues related to the documentation process as well as negotiation with lessors. Nevertheless, we have put in place remedies to fast track the closing for the balance of our tower [indiscernible]. Closing of the remaining towers and collection of those proceeds will be extended to 2024. As mentioned earlier, our Board of Directors approved a payout of PHP 25 per share which on an annualized basis is equivalent to 75% or the maximum of our dividend payout range of 60% to 75% of prior year's core net income. This is proof of Globe's commitment, a sustainable dividend policy that is in line with our earnings and cash generation as well as through our commitment of delivering value to our shareholders. Key dates for the separation are the payment date of December 1, 2023, to shareholders on record as of November 17, 2023. We now move on to our balance sheet. Gross debt level is at PHP 245.5 billion with unrestricted cash level at PHP 16 billion. All ratios are well within our bank covenants and in line with peers despite the challenging macro-economic environment. These are expected to improve in the near term, in line with our efforts in showing a free cash flow and controlling CapEx spending. Lastly, we are happy to share the achievement of our 2023 guidance, which remains largely to be on track. We believe we are weathering this [indiscernible] mass economic environment quite well, as evidenced by record high revenue and EBITDA mix. We are confident in being able to sustain this growth in our top line [indiscernible] inflationary pressures, weaker GDP growth and higher for longer interest rates. Furthermore, we maintain our EBITDA margin guidance of 50% and our sale or leaseback initiative, the closing of our remaining towers and collection of gross proceed barrels will be extended through 2024 due to documentation, technical and lesser related issues. We also reiterate our major commitment to showing up free cash flow, which we target to bring into positive territory by 2025. This guidance will be [indiscernible] by our planned notion in CapEx spend enabled by a streamlining of PO issuances for 2023 to only USD 600 million. Again, this more targeted level of deals is the amount of a well-executed CapEx plan of the company and will be a leading indicator of spending over the next few years allowing us to drop CapEx to USD 1 billion by 2024 and possibly even lower in the subsequent years. These efforts show the company's commitment to deliver quality [indiscernible] while maintaining financial sustainability. That ends the presentation. Thank you all very much for listening.

Thank you again, [indiscernible]. Before we begin with the Q&A session, we'd like to introduce the management panel. First, we have our present CEO, Mr. Ernest Cu, Ms. Rosemarie Maniego-Eala, our Chief Finance Officer; Ms. Rebecca Eclipse, our Chief Transformation and Operations Officer; Froilan Castelo, General Counsel; Mr. Darius Delgado, Vice President of Consumer Mobile Business; Ms. Abby Cardino, Vice President, Head of Transformation Governance Broadband business; also Ms. Martha Sazon, our President and CEO of Mynt. We'd also like to [indiscernible] that this is the first time that Abby will be joining the panel. Thanks, Abby and good luck.

We'll now begin the Q&A session. Our first set of questions come from Rachelle Rodriguez of Maybank. And the first question is, of course, for Abby. It's a question composed of 3 parts. The question reads, what caused over 400,000 Q-on-Q churn on wireless broadband? Is it related to the SIM card registration? What percentage of revenues for the remaining subscribers?

Thank you for that question. The 400,000 Q-on-Q decline is largely due to the SIM card registration. But this one only impacts 10% of the monthly top-ups because majority are actually nonloaders. Majority of the revenue generating customers were able to register before the deadline.

Thank you, Abby. The next question is for Rizza. How much more tower gains are you expecting to recognize for the remainder of the year?

As mentioned in the presentation, we've sold and turned over around 55% of the tower sold and we're seeing a slowdown in terms of being able to move the towers to our tower partners and our new estimate is to close all towers that -- close all tower sale by the first half of 2024. I think there's a simplification in terms of the gains. We do not expect to recognize any more gains from the sale for the fourth quarter of this year. So a balance will be ported over the first half of next year.

Thank you, Rizza. The next question again is for Abby. Can you give updates stats on your prepaid WiFi and fiber business? And how many subscribers do you have now?

After the launch of our GFiber Prepaid last July, we are getting positive sentiments. This one includes the good experience, a fully digital experience, affordability, the good network as well as the convenience of loading via GCash. It has also the highest reload rate and the loader ARPU among our prepaid brands in Globe. So for the prepaid fiber, we are pursuing a more measured approach to ensure that we get quality customers compared to how the rest of the players are doing it. We wanted to make sure that we acquire quality customers that stay active longer in their network. So we are carefully ramping up our prepaid fiber in the traction for this segment should ensure that we have a lower churn. So we want to scale the business properly getting quality customers, what we call [read intenders] for us, creating that state of awareness to deliver that massive pool, leveraging on our superior distribution network as a Globe group, given our deep knowledge of the prepaid consumer market. Thank you, Jose.

Thank you, Abby. The next set of questions come from Arthur Pineda of Citi. And the first question broken down to 3 parts is, I believe, for Darius. What is driving up the firm Q-on-Q mobile revenue growth trends? Is this due to the price adjustments or rising consumer spending levels on weaker inflation? And can this be sustained into the fourth quarter?

Thank you for that question, Arthur. So it's a combination of portfolio streamlining efforts that we have executed in the market. That had absolutely significant upsell impact in the base as well as key campaigns and launches to maintain the relevance of our brands in the market. Of course, support continuously improving experience, which enables us to deliver the experience our customers to serve and experience that they are willing to pay for. On the last question, can this be sustained in the fourth quarter? We will sustain this at least until the end of the year as we enter the peak season.

Okay. Thank you, Darius. The next question again relates to the broadband and this, of course, for Abby. Can you give us more color on the prepaid broadband take-up levels and expectations for the remainder of the year?

The share of the prepaid fiber right now is very small, but we wanted to -- I showed you guys that we are very intentional in offering the pure online as we go for a differentiated execution versus the traditional door-to-door. So we see this as an opportunity to ensure that the channel -- the online channel is frictionless, it's easy, simple, the digital experience. We expect the growth to come largely from the [TMA] segment, especially those who are financially challenged, given the high inflation that we are experiencing right now. Those who are in need of a more aggressive spend stable back up to a fiber line. And then we're also seeing that the fiber -- the fixed wireless is also a good target source as they move into that stable connectivity for fiber. Thank you, Jose.

Thank you, Abby. The next set of questions from Gabriel Madrid of [indiscernible], I believe. This question is pertaining to prepaid fiber and also on tower sales has already been answered. So we'll just provide or share the answers off-line with Gabriel. Again, thank you for your questions. The next set of questions come from Pranav Balani of TATA Securities. And the first question is, I believe for Darius. Would the team be able to provide color on how corporate data revenue contracted by 2% quarter-quarter?

Thanks for that question again. So the Q-on-Q decline essentially was mainly cost by certain accounts in the EG and SG side of the business, economizing in their operations [indiscernible] to downgrade from prepaid data plans to broadband, which is low ARPUs. This is also exacerbated by the fact that we lose out and service availability in terms of wired footprint versus competition. We have seen, though, and this is a bright spot that starting September of Q3, we are able to recover lost momentum, putting us at a very good starting point starting Q4.

Thank you, Darius. The next question pertains to our data center business. Question is, will the entire 124 megawatts of the STP Fairview campus come online early 2025? Or will it be in phases?

Let me answer that. The 124-megawatt campus will come online in phases starting in the first quarter of 2025, actually. We expect about 30-plus megawatts to be ready at that point in time and then succeeding phases will deliver approximately 30-plus megawatts as well. We expect about 4 phases of delivery for that particular facility. That being said, today, we broke ground on a smaller data center in Cavite called Cavite 2, which is also of the same standard as that of STT Fairview. It will also be hyperscale ready. It's in the location of the existing Globe Cavite data center today in Gateway Business Park. That 6-megawatt will also be ready sometime in 2025, right? So take a full year of build. We are accelerating a lot of the smaller cuts primarily because of the demand we're seeing coming in from interest in hyperscalers.

Thanks, Ernest. The next question, I believe, is for Darius. On the mobile segment, also competition post SIM registration?

Just like in the previous quarters, competition has remained relatively rational even post the same SIM card registration implementation.

Thanks, Darius. The next set of questions come from Herman de la Paz of Abacus Securities. The first question, I believe, is for Rizza. It's about dividends. The question is 3 parts. May I ask again about Globe's different policy. What would be the implications of dividends considering the lower CapEx moving forward? Are special dividends already being considered?

Thanks, Herman, for the question. Our dividend policy, as you all know, is 60% to 75% of prior year's core net income. Our preference is to keep within this policy and to focus on reverting to free cash flow positive by 2025. And our main focus is to continue providing sustainable dividends, and we will consider any special dividends once we've reached the free cash flow positive territory and when we no longer have to borrow to pay for those dividends.

Thank you, Rizza. The next set of questions, I believe, are for Martha regarding Mynt. First, 2 sets of -- I mean the first question is any updated time line for Mynt's plan listing? Will it be a domestic listing or abroad?

Well, we've seen capital movements within the region, the global markets. So while these are good signs for us, we continue to monitor as to when will be the best time to go public. In the real time, we're using this time to focus on our growth and scale. And as Ernest mentioned before, so that we could be IP already any time soon.

Maybe just a further comment. One of the biggest challenges we were seeing is the drop in liquidity in the PSE. I think all of you are seeing that as analysts, right? We're now down to about $25 million per day in terms of turnover. And if you have an ambition for a large IPO, it's very difficult to get institutional -- large institutional to invest and not be able to trade in that market. Obviously, our priority is to list in the Philippines, given the fact that we consider GCash to be a national champion in terms of fintech and one that is a very beloved brand with a very, very high NPS score, which we hoped the retail public will want to own and trade the shares. So we're watching the market very closely in terms of its progress, in terms of its recovery, which we hope it will happen because it's not only for Mynt, but also for Globe and the rest of the stocks in the PSE. We hope that there's some more actions will be taken by the PSE, the SEC and other regulators on driving additional investors and volume of the PSE up once again to the old levels. So that being said, that means we're also looking at other markets at this stage.

Thank you, Ernest. The next question again is for Mynt and of course, for Martha. Do we still expect volatility in Mynt's profitability which current level already sustainable?

In terms of profitability, our plan and forecast is to sustain that. But as to the level of profitability, it might fluctuate as we focus on growing and scaling our business further. As you know, we're one of the very few fintechs in the world to be profitable. So what our next level is the further scale the business in terms of revenue and profit. So that would mean that there will be times that we may have to invest more on growth. So profits would have to take a backseat during that time. But definitely to sustain the overall profitability of Mynt would be one of our main forecasts in the coming years.

Thank you, Martha. The next set of questions come from Ranjan, Ranjan Sharma of JPMorgan. The first question, I believe, is for Rizza. What is the reason for the 16% increase in payables from 2022 to the third quarter of 2023?

Thanks, Ranjan. The increase is predominantly still a function of our network expansion, especially in 2022. Recall, we spent $1.9 billion in 2022, and we are targeting to spend USD 1 billion to USD 3 billion this year. So is this still the main driver of payables.

Thank you, Rizza. The next question is on ECPay, and I believe that perhaps Ernest can answer this first. What are the services offered by ECPay? And can Globe provide any financials for ECPay?

Well, ECPay alongside GCash has one of the widest payment platforms in the country for off-line, meaning they empower -- they power are offline merchants to accept payments on behalf of utilities airlines and so on. And the reason -- one of the reasons why we put that into GCash is that we wanted to purify as a portfolio action all of our fintech holdings under one roof. Rather than grow ECPay individually, as I said, a company also dealing in payments and actually is also a fintech moving it into GCash, we believe, gives us the best synergy. It also removes quite a bit of redundancy in the efforts to acquire this off-line merchants, whether they be satiated stores or supermarkets or so on or even drugstores and the like. This allows a single effort by the Globe Group using the GCash platform, to control payments in the country, whether it's online payments or off-line payments. So GCash gains an asset in the like of ECPay to now take over and own the off-line channels as well. Now for financials, I think I'll leave it to the IR team on what you guys disclose. Yes.

Yes. Thanks, Ernest. We'll just revert to Ranjan. Thank you. The last question from Ranjan is, I believe is this for Rizza. Some of the cost items look very low versus 2Q, '23. Are there any structural changes in costs? Where can these costs are more likely to increase in the coming quarters?

This is our second year where we've embarked on a targeted cost transformation. And as such, we are really managing our costs and there could be differences on patterns quarter-on-quarter because of this. But if we annualize it, we continue to maintain our EBITDA margin guidance of 50% for full year.

Thank you, Rizza. Next set of questions come from Adele Bermudez of First Metro. Her first question regarding GFiber Prepaid, I believe has already been answered earlier or asked earlier. So we just provide their answer off-line. The next question is on mobile. So this is for Darius. Can you give us more color on the high prepaid churn rate?

As you have noticed also [indiscernible] and as disclosed, this was mainly brought about with the first churn, as a result of SCR implementation where we removed 30 million in active subs from that base, coming only from the 2 biggest brands, which are Globe Prepaid and TM. Net of such first churn, however, our churn rates have been stable Q-on-Q and still improving year-on-year.

Thanks, Darius. The follow-up to that is -- again, this is for Darius. How many of your total subscribers are revenue generating on the mobile side?

Close to 100% are revenue generating.

Okay. Thank you. And for last question from Adele is a housekeeping question. What is Globe's current smartphone penetration rate? I believe this is at around 90% as of [indiscernible].

Over 90%. Yes.

The next set of questions come from Mary Angeline [indiscernible], Metrobank. First question, I believe, is again for Rizza. What is the group's 2024 revenue growth guidance? And which segments are driving this, if ever?

We're still working on our budget for 2024. And today, the only guidance we've given for next year is CapEx, will be $1 billion. Secondly, we also stated that we are working towards reverting to free cash flow positive by 2025. So hopefully, by Feb will give you better numbers for 2024. But I think you can already use our take offer both the third quarter and 9 months to build or at least update your 2024 numbers.

Thanks, Rizza. The second question pertains to CapEx guidance for 2024. And I believe we have already provided this in the presentation and during the last quarter presentation as well. We expect guidance for CapEx to be around USD 1 billion for 2024. Thank you for those questions, Angeline. Okay. So that leaves us with the next set of questions perhaps from our guests who are on the floor at the moment. We now ask those analysts who are here. If you have any questions, please go to the front, state your name and company before asking your question. Thank you very much.

Derrick from CLSA. So I have some questions regarding first in the corporate data side and ECPay and GCash. So first, on the data centers and corporate data. So I noticed this 8% year-on-year growth on -- in terms of revenues from that front, but data only grew 2% year-on-year. So how much do data centers contributed to the corporate data front and why is it lower growth compared to the other segments? And next on the ECPay and GCash segments, clarify ECPay, how does it differ from merchant acquirers? And is the acquisition by Mynt levered or if it's -- if it's not, are you using cash from the last equity raise? And given that 2020, you had $9 billion in current assets for Mynt cash flow to be probably lower than that. Do you need additional [indiscernible]?

Thanks, Derrick. Let me answer the question on corporate data. So our current capacity for the data centers are full, and that is why we are rapidly expanding through the builds that Ernest mentioned earlier. Now we actually booked our data center revenues, a share in equity earnings of our JV. So basically, when you look at it, it's not on our EBITDA or on our revenue line because it's a -- we own for 50% of the JV.

Now your question on ECPay was about merchant acquiring. In a way, it is similar, not to that but they're acquiring not for credit card, but they're acquiring merchants to accept payments on behalf of utilities. That's been the traditional business of ECPay when we acquired them, and we've grown that business significantly. It was that the question you were asking about -- what's the second question on ECPay or that was it? The second question was? I'll leave it to [ Tek ] the CFO. But the answer is, Mynt is cash flow positive. Yes. So there really is no need at this point in time to acquire -- get more -- do some fundraising unless we have a definite need and with a strategy to use the funds. Again, I would like to reiterate that this is very different from majority of the digital banks or payment players out there who are still bleeding cash at the moment. If you recall, we turned cash flow positive sometime in 2022, 2021, cash flow EBITDA positive. And at the end of 2021, we turned net income positive and have stayed net income positive for all of 2022 and obviously, have grown that significantly. You said PHP 1.6 billion contribution on the equity line that Mynt has provided to Globe. So if you do the math, you'll know what net income of Mynt is. Yes, we just got -- any more questions on data centers. We just -- I just came from the groundbreaking of Cavite 2, the 6-megawatt data center I mentioned earlier, that's Carlo Malana, CEO of STT GDC Philippines.

Stephen here from China Bank Securities. Just two questions for me. First is how do Globe plan to grow its revenues for 2024, especially given the projected elevated interest rates and inflation? That's my first question.

That's a very good question. I think we're quite confident that the current market situation and the stability of competition as well as the increasing pricing that we're seeing in the market, and it's been allowing us to do that would allow us to maintain at least the growth rates or the revenue rates we're seeing in 2023 as long as competition remains stable and rational, I think it would be a very stable telecom in 2024.

Got it. For my second question is for 917 Ventures. Is there any planned new product onto over the foreseeable future or any technologies that you wanted to tap into?

Well, the 917 Ventures goes through at a bit of iteration throughout the year, right? So there will be more announcements in terms of new product launches as they see solutions to problems that they see day-to-day in Philippines, right? Obviously, the focus right now is on AI as well. They're looking at how they can create AI-driven solutions to sow some of the pressing problems of the daily Filipino life. That's their focus. So you will see some adoption of AI into existing offerings as well as in new offerings as well.

I'm [indiscernible] from Security Bank. Expense has been really outpacing the revenue growth. So what exactly are your initiatives going forward in the next quarters to manage this? Will the power sales have a big impact on that or more in the core business? What's the initiatives for them?

Well, it's a little bit challenging because once we cut certain costs, the fuel increases and inflation is just too much versus expectation. So we really have to navigate closely till will be able to hit our 50% EBITDA target. But there are actually a number of initiatives that we are still in the pipeline that will allow us to continue improving. So for example, we've spent heavily on automation and all of those benefits will mean that we can cut certain costs that are no longer needed that we used to spend. So we're going through that process. Hopefully the economy [indiscernible], so there's a little bit more uptick on revenue, right? So that the strain on really cutting costs will not be that large. But from where we sit, we believe that there are opportunities to make sure that our productivity continues and that we are able to keep at the 50% EBITDA margin despite all the challenges. It's a bit tough, but we are working very hard.

Just a follow-up. Regarding cybersecurity spending, would you say how much does it comprise of your operating expenses or CapEx? And how do you -- how is your outlook for that?

From our IT spend. So if you break down our CapEx, we always say that about 8% to 5% will be network related and then 15% will be non-network related. In our case, we don't have a number to share. But IT security is one of the investments that we're serious about. So we look for new [indiscernible] and we're constantly also bidding out certain things. And this is necessary because we're also selling IT security. So we don't have the number, but it is one of the investments that we are serious about and do not cut corners on.

Let me just maybe comment on cybersecurity. It's a very big priority for Globe. It's a significant spend for Globe. We do believe and -- but we don't say it in public because it get to be a target, right? I think we're 1 of the 4 most practitioners of very good cybersecurity practices in the Philippines today. We've got a very, very strong team. Perhaps that's something we can feature in future IRs to expose some of the team that does cybersecurity for Globe. This is one of the reasons why we also decided to bring to market some of that expertise through our Globe business offering. And cybersecurity, as far as the product line offering is one of the fastest-growing ICT services we provide to enterprise customers today.

Are there any additional questions from the floor? Perhaps at this point, we'll again refer to follow-up questions from the Zoom audience. This came from Katrina Yap of Infocom, and I believe these are questions for Darius. The first question is you reported that ICT revenues have improved by 20% year-on-year. Can you provide us with an indication on the share of ICT revenues in total corporate data revenues?

Can I answer both questions?

Yes.

So the first one is in terms of corporate data in ICT [indiscernible] 30% of those revenues actually come from ICT. Hence, it's driving the 8% quarter-on-quarter -- year-on-year growth with ICT growing 20% because it comprised 30% of the total. In terms of the ICT segment identified, the 3 top products, we will see still continue momentum in Q4, our cybersecurity business, application solutions in big data and IoT coming from the 2 main industry verticals such as finance, IT and services.

Thanks, Darius. So those are the questions from -- at this point from the Zoom audience. Are there any follow-up questions from the live audience? So as there are no further questions, this concludes the Q&A portion of our briefing. Before we adjourn, of course, we will now turn over the floor to Ernest for his closing remarks.

Just to recap some of the news that we presented for the third quarter, I think you're seeing a very stable albeit slowly growing mobile business at 2% to 3% growth. As low as that number is, it's probably one of the better results for telcos in the world, actually, not just the region, I would say. There's a challenge today in telco when it comes to achieving growth simply because of the number of use cases or new ones that are coming out that drive mobile use. We are fortunate in the Philippines. It's still a growing data market. And I think absent inflation, we would be able to see better growth, I think, in the mid to single -- mid-single digits had inflation not reared its ugly head. But the good news is that we're seeing, hopefully, a tapering of inflation, not quite in line with what the BSP did recently. But hopefully, that would be the last move in terms of interest rates upward that we'll see in the near future. On the Mynt side, we continue to see increasing revenue growth. You'll see that as we increase and disclose the equity earnings share of Globe in Mynt as been going up steadily. I think it's a reflection of the quality of revenue growth we're seeing in the company. A lot of it is driven by continuous domination in payments. A steadily growing lending business, which, again, probably points to a good indication of how well the credit score of Mynt has evolved over the last 7 years. The other angle of Mynt has been this increasing number of services that we've been offering. This is -- and despite the fact that there have been quite a number of delays encountered with regulators on new products and services that we hope would provide more [indiscernible] from financial services had we've been able to launch those services. But what you see today with regard to staff trading has been very encouraging, always in pilot, but even more encouraging are the international services. The recent launch of the Visa card, Visa debit card tied to your wallet is a very big enabler for Filipino travelers abroad. Unlike yourselves, you could probably get credit cards at will, a lot of our countrymen are unable to bring cards with them when they travel overseas. And it becomes a challenge because if you go to more developed economies like Japan, China, even in Korea, for that matter. I was there last week, people frown on cash, right? But having a Visa card debit, debit Visa card attached to your wallet enables you to pay electronically and digitally. There's also an international feature that we launched, which is enabling Filipinos overseas to use their phone numbers. You don't need to bring a Philippine SIM card with you anymore to maintain your GCash account, you can now use your local numbers. But then again, this is under pilot today, and we're limited to a sandbox of about 1,000 per country. We hope to grow this today with 12 countries, Martha, 6 countries. But were enabled for, I think, 18, right? If were allowed by the regulator to do it, which we're imploring them to do, then more and more of our countrymen can enjoy GCash services overseas. And once you have GCash services overseas, you can just imagine the remittance rails that you'll have directly to your families or pay for your bills directly -- their bills directly through GCash in your own -- in the country that you reside in today. So things, I think, are looking well as well for the data center business. Today, like I said, we broke ground on a 6-megawatt facility, state-of-the-art hyperscale quality also telco data center in Cavite. Our partners and us are very much aligned in our optimism about this market. A lot of it as our partner mentioned today in their talk that it's fueled by the AI revolution. And AI, as you know, requires significant amounts of computing, significant amounts of data storage for the training or the large language models that you're seeing coming out there. And we think the demand for data centers will be driven by that over the short term. So -- and the race is on, as Carlo builds the data centers and bring them online. We hope that you will start seeing some effects of that on our P&L. With that, I'd like to say thank you to everyone. It's been a bit quieter this quarter. But nonetheless, the question is coming from both the Zoom audience as well as the physical audience. So thank you very much, and have a pleasant afternoon.

And on that note, we conclude third quarter 2023 analyst briefing Globe Telecom. We should thank again all of you who joined this year and in the call, We hope you join us again for our fourth quarter 2023 analyst briefing in early February 2024. Thank you.