Converge ICT says it is on track to reach 15M households by 2025

Internet service provider Converge ICT Solutions Inc. on Wednesday said it is on track to reach over 15 million Philippine households by 2025, as the company reported it doubled its fiber network in 2020 amid its backbone expansion program.

Converge reported over 28,300 kilometers of fiber optic cables added in 2020, 107% higher than the 26,600 kilometers recorded in 2019. The company reported 2.7 million fiber-to-the-home ports for broadband customers across the nation and over 1 million residential subscribers as of end-2020 versus 529,000 the previous year.

"We are well on track to meeting our goal of reaching over 15 million or 55% of Philippine households by 2025 and ready to serve the high-speed broadband requirements of the majority of our people," chief executive officer Dennis Anthony Uy said in an emailed statement.

Converge recorded a reach of 6.1 million homes in 2020, equivalent to 25% of the total households in the country which it seeks to widen further as it has allocated P33 billion for its "innovative and flexible" high-capacity backbone from a US-based networking systems, services, and software company which it did not identify.

The service provider last year also said it is on track to substantially complete its primary nationwide backbone loops which will connect Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao by 2021.

"We have been accelerating the expansion of our fiber-optic network because we wanted to reach the underserved and unserved areas in the country which are longing for fiber-fast internet service," said Uy.

"The community quarantine regulations due to the COVID-19 pandemic that made people rely more on their internet service for work and study at home have only made our mission to deliver fiber-fast broadband to a greater number of Filipinos more urgent," he added.

In October, Converge said it is set to spend P29 billion in the next 18 months to finance its expansion across the country, the same amount it made from its initial public offering.

Shares in Converge opened Wednesday at P18.80 apiece, up from Tuesday's finish of P18.72 per share. — RSJ, GMA News