Uy, the co-founder and CEO of Converge, revealed that the company has deployed nearly 9 million ports—access points enabling end-users to connect to its internet services—though a significant portion remains underutilized.
“We have almost nine million ports but use three million so there’s six million more,” he told reporters in a chance interview on Monday.
“This is like a hotel: the more occupants you have, the better for the owner,” he added. “You need to maximize these [assets]. The good thing is these have already been built and it’s not easy to build.”
Infra asset carve out
InsiderPH, citing industry sources, earlier reported that the group will spin off its fiber lines to a third-party firm also controlled by the Uy family.
This was an important step in opening the company’s network infrastructure to other internet players, sparing them the need for significant capital investments and lengthy build times.
The Uys could also opt to sell a minority stake to a new strategic partner that could value the new business as much as P175 billion.
Smaller players to ride on Converge’s network
“We want to help small [internet] operators have access to new technology,” Uy said on Monday. “Our capacity is at 30 percent so we have an opportunity to share it.”
One example of this strategy is the recent infrastructure-sharing deal between Converge and SkyCable, owned by the Lopez family’s ABS-CBN Corp.
Benjamin Azada, Converge’s chief commercial officer, said the migration of Sky’s roughly 300,000 subscribers is ongoing and is expected to be completed by the first half of 2025.
Converge ended the first nine months with 2.46 million subscribers, after adding a net 257,594 users during the period.
A key program moving into next year will involve growing their base of enterprise customers, which account for 15 percent of revenues, which is smaller than those of competitors such as PLDT and Globe.
Robust 9-month financials
Converge ended the first nine months with a net income of P8.2 billion, up 29 percent over the same period last year, while revenues grew 14.1 percent to P29.9 billion.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization—a key profit indicator—grew 20.5 percent to P18.3 billion, while EBITDA margin reached 61 percent.
Strong growth prospects contributed to share price gains of about 87 percent so far this year. Converge shares slipped 3.8 percent to P15.68 each on Monday.
