ANGELES CITY – With the demand for broadband services surging even amid the Covid-19 pandemic, city–based Converge ICT Solutions Inc. reaped a profit windfall in the first semester of 2020.
Converge ICT revenues hit P6.49 billion, a leap of 65 percent as of June 30, compared to the same period lastyear while its net income of P1.26 billion jumped 50 percent.
In its prospectus, the company owned by Angeles City–grown Dennis Anthony Uy said home broadband subscribers nearly doubled in the first semester: from 381,343 last year, it ended June 2020 with 731,563 subscribers.
It was only last July, amid the strict community quarantine wrought by Covid-19, that the company filed a record P35.9 billion initial public offering (IPO). The offer and listing on the Philippine Stock Exchange is expected to be completed within October this year.
Backed by United States private equity firm Warburg Pincus, Converge ICT said P8.22 billion would be spent on expansion from 2021 to 2022. The rest of the IPO proceeds will go to the company’s shareholders.
Apart from the IPO, the company is lining up additional financing, saying that it tapped two local banks this month to raise P10 billion via 7-year term loans. As a result, it has commitments from leading banks for about P32.7 billion, enough to cover spending “for the next several years.”
Converge ICT said it will use the funds to extend its dominant share in high-speed home internet, a businesssegment that it considered as “vastly underserved” in the country.
According to Converge ICT estimates, unserved demand was up to $4.2 billion in 2019 – 4.3 times the market last year in terms of revenues, and further seen to hit $6.9 billion in revenue by 2025.
“We believe that the Philippine fixed broadband market is currently at an inflection point, with Converge, in particular, serving as a catalyst for market growth as it continues to lead efforts to address current unserved demand,” the company said.
Converge is currently undergoing expansion through the construction of a nationwide broadband network. With PR and news reports
