Converge ICT eyeing up to 5M subscribers by 2025

Fiber internet service provider Converge ICT Solutions is looking to further expand its subscriber base in the next five years, after it achieved a million subscribers.

“The target for 2025. We are looking at between four to five million [subscribers],” Converge ICT chief operating officer Jesus Romero told GMA News Online in a virtual interview.

To achieve the goal, Romero said the company will be “expanding to Visayas and Mindanao next year as we finish our own backbone.”

In July, Converge said it would spend P33 billion for the remainder of 2020 and the rest of 2021 for the development and expansion of its national backbone, provincial backbone, and last-mile connectivity.

In celebration of breaching one million subscribers, Converge ICT announced free permanent speed upgrades of up to 300 megabits per second (Mbps) to customers starting December 15.

Converge said new subscribers will also enjoy their first month completely free when they apply for any plan from December 12, 2020 until January 31, 2021.

Asked if the free permanent upgrade will have financial impact to the company, Romero said Converge ICT’s network “can support more capacity.”

“So the cost component was really international. As international prices have gone down, we are now able to give it back to customers,” he said.

Converge saw an 83% climb in its income for the third quarter of 020 to P931.5 million versus P509.4 million the same period in 2019.

Year-to-date, its income rose 59.5% to P2.170 billion from P1.361 billion previously.

The company in October generated P29 billion from its initial public offering (IPO), the same amount it has allocated to spend in the next 18 months to finance its expansion across the country. -NB, GMA News