Philippines-based Globe Telecom has upped its capital expenditure for the year by 16%, and will spend more than a third of the amount on boosting its mobile broadband business.
CEO Ernest Cu has declared that $180 million of the proposed $500 million capital expenditure for the year would be assigned to 3G broadband, Business Worldsaid.
The remaining $320 million of capital expenditure will go toward 2G upgrades, cable investments, corporate expense and the company’s enterprise unit Globe Business.
The company will foot $60 million of the total cost of the Southeast Asia-Japan (SJC) cablethat is due for completion in two years. The cable is expected to help Globe service its broadband customers.
Globe would also be looking toward acquiring rights to more bandwidth from the government, Cu said.
Globe’s investment decision comes after rival PLDT’s earlier announcement that the latter would focus on the mobile broadband business after its acquisition of Sun, the country’s third largest cellular provider, is completed.
At the press conference following the shareholder meeting, Cu had urged the government to examine if the proposed acquisition would threaten competitiveness in the country’s telecommunications sector.