Mobile services revenue to reach $5.4 billion in 5 years

MANILA, Philippines — Revenues from mobile services in the country are expected to hit $5.4 billion over the next five years amid increasing adoption of mobile data.

GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company in the UK, said total mobile services revenue in the Philippines would increase at an annual rate of 5.6 percent to reach $5.4 billion in 2026 from the expected $4.1 billion this year.

Mobile data revenue alone will grow at the fastest annual rate of 6.6 percent over the five-year period.

GlobalData attributed the growth to the growing 4G subscriptions and the planned rollout of 5G services. In fact, major telcos Smart and Globe are ramping up their 5G coverage in the country.

5G services are expected to account for 22.5 percent of total mobile subscriptions by end-2026 in the Philippines.

In turn, the average monthly mobile data usage is projected to increase from 3.7 gigabytes this year to about 4.8 GB in 2026.

GlobalData said this would be driven by the growing consumption of high-bandwidth online video services and social media content over smartphones.

On the other hand, mobile voice revenues will increase at a relatively slower annual rate of 3.2 percent over the same period as voice average revenue per user decreases further.

“4G subscriptions will surpass 3G in 2021, driven by the ongoing 4G/LTE network expansions and increase in the availability of 4G-enabled smartphones,” GlobalData telecom analyst Harika Damidi said.

Just until recently, the country’s mobile communications market has been a virtual duopoly with Smart and Globe as major service providers.

In March this year, Dito Telecommunity commenced operations and became the third player in the country’s mobile services market.

“Dito is attracting customers through limited period promotional plans with unlimited texts and free 300 minutes of calls to other networks, and unlimited texts and calls on the same network as a part of its 10 GB and 25 GB plans,” Damidi said.