Philippines: Globe Telecom bags $263m loan for network rollout

Philippines telco Globe has secured a $263 million loan with the Metropolitan Bank & Trust Company to finance its network upgrading and debt refinancing. In a press statement, the company had invested $660 million in Capex in the first half of this year. This investment was noted to be 25 percent lower year-on-year in its efforts to bring free cash flow back to more sustainable levels.

Around 90% of capex spending was diverted to network deployment to meet rising consumer demand for connectivity services. By mid-year, Globe had built 542 new cell sites and upgraded 5,087 mobile sites to LTE. The telco giant also deployed 148,000 FTTH lines, noting that this number was only lower as it chose to maximize the use of its existing fiber inventory instead. 

Updating the public on its 5G network rollout, the telco company mentioned that its new network has expanded to 97.44 percent of the National Capital Region and 91 percent of key cities, including Visayas and Mindanao.