PH among top 10 in worldwide telco investments

The Philippines is among the top 10 countries in the world when it comes to investments in telecommunications, according to the Institute of Management Development’s (IMD) World Competitiveness Center.

In its World Digital Competitiveness Rankings of 2020, the Philippines is the tenth country that has ramped up its investments on telecommunications to meet the rising demands amid the pandemic.

India placed first, followed by South Africa, Croatia, Australia, and Slovenia, making up the top five countries.

As connectivity and internet access become essential amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, spending to improve telecommunications infrastructure has significantly increased.

Globe Telecom, for its part, embarked on a wider and more inclusive builds and rollouts of its cell towers and fiber modernization to close the gaps in areas of the country where connectivity needs further improvement. It allocated at least P50.3 billion in capital expenditures for its network expansion and upgrades for 2020.

“It’s been a number of years that the country has been over-indexing other countries when it comes to capital expenditures. For 2019, our CAPEX to revenue ratio is about 34 percent. We expect to continue with the investments because of the increasing demand for our services,” said Globe President and CEO Ernest Cu.

Globe noted that with the new government policies lifting the restrictive permitting process in place, investments in telecom infrastructure are now focused on tower builds to expand coverage and increase capacity.

It added that increasing fiber connections to homes is another investment opportunity to provide customers with better data experience. Countries with better infrastructure have shown better chances and capability to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on their economies.

“With better, faster, accessible, and affordable services, more opportunities will be made available to our people.  These opportunities will then be translated to a more stable and stronger economy that hopefully will give the Philippines a better spot in World Digital Competitiveness rankings in the future,” Cu said.

The remaining countries that complete the top 10 in IMD’s ranking are Colombia (6th), Ukraine (7th), Malaysia (8th), Mongolia (9th), and the Philippines.