Financial Adviser: 5 Things to Know About Jaime Zobel de Ayala’s Globe Telecom in 2025 and How to Profit from It
The Philippine stock market has endured one of its most difficult stretches in years. As of Monday (November 10), the Philippine Stock Exchange Index (PSEi) trades near 5,700, down more than 1,000 points year-to-date, weighed by persistent foreign outflows, high interest rates, and fading risk appetite. Liquidity remains thin, and investor sentiment is subdued, with most blue-chip names retreating to multi-year lows.
Among the hardest-hit sectors is telecommunications, once considered a defensive haven. With households cutting back on discretionary spending and mobile competition intensifying, telco shares have not escaped the market’s downdraft.
Both Globe Telecom Inc. (PSE: GLO) and its peers have seen valuations compress sharply as investors rotated toward short-duration assets and cyclicals that might benefit sooner from any monetary easing cycle.
For GLO, the pullback has been striking. From a high of around P2,400 per share in early 2024, the stock has fallen to roughly P1,450 by November 2025, which represents a decline of about 40 percent. The chart shows an extended sequence of lower highs and lower lows, which mirrors the broader risk-off sentiment in the PSE. The drop has erased nearly P70 billion in market capitalization and pushed GLO’s valuation multiples back to levels last seen during the pandemic sell-off of 2020.
Several factors have contributed to this slide. The first is sluggish revenue growth in legacy mobile services, where saturation and price competition have squeezed margins. Despite solid take-up in home broadband and enterprise connectivity, these gains have not fully offset the drag from traditional voice and text revenues.
The second is macroeconomic. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ prolonged high-rate stance has lifted borrowing costs across the market, which pressured leveraged and high-dividend stocks like GLO.
The third is investor perception. Market sentiment toward the stock has grown increasingly cautious, with many investors focusing on short-term earnings pressure and slower top-line growth rather than the company’s long-term fundamentals.
It doesn’t help that the broader market has been dominated by negative headlines, from slowing household demand to political friction and weak corporate earnings. In an environment where cash preservation outweighs growth stories, even fundamentally sound firms can trade below intrinsic value.
Still, history suggests that such corrections rarely persist indefinitely. Each major down-cycle in the Philippine telecom sector has eventually produced opportunities for patient investors willing to look past temporary headwinds.
The question now is whether GLO’s current weakness reflects a structural decline or a mispricing of a business whose fundamentals remain intact.
Before making that judgment, it’s best to look beyond the red candles and examine what the company actually delivers. Let’s analyze GLO’s core fundamentals more closely before deciding if this stock deserves a place in a long-term portfolio.
Here are the five things every investor should know about Globe Telecoms and how we can profit from it:
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1| Know the earnings of the company
In 2024, GLO reported total revenues of P180.6 billion, almost unchanged from P180.2 billion in 2023. Modest growth in service revenues offset the decline in non-service income after the reduction of tower-sale transactions. EBITDA reached P86.8 billion, an increase of seven percent from the previous year, as GLO focused on strict cost discipline and operational efficiency. The EBITDA margin stood at roughly 52 percent, one of the highest in the industry.
At first glance, GLO’s net income appeared flat at P24.3 billion versus P24.6 billion in 2023. However, its 2023 figure included a P7.3 billion one-time gain from tower sales, while 2024 included a smaller P3.5 billion gain. After removing these non-recurring items, core net income rose from an estimated P17.3 billion in 2023 to P20.8 billion in 2024, an increase of 20 percent year-on-year.
The improvement resulted from tighter expense control, consistent data growth, and lower depreciation after several years of intensive infrastructure investment. The year 2024 served as a transition period when the company shifted from an asset-heavy expansion phase to one focused on efficiency and steady cash generation.
However, for the first nine months of 2025, Globe reported total operating revenues of P131.6 billion, two percent lower than the same period last year, as household demand weakened and competition in mobile services intensified.
EBITDA declined by one percent to P64.2 billion, but the margin remained firm at 52.8 percent. Net income reached P17.7 billion, a decline of 14 percent from P20.6 billion in the prior year, while core net income stood at P15.5 billion, down 12 percent. The decrease resulted from higher depreciation and financing costs rather than weaker operations.
Based on the nine-month-to-full-year relationship in 2024, nine-month income accounted for about 85 percent of the total annual profit. Applying this ratio to the 2025 nine-month figure of P17.7 billion indicates that GLO’s full-year net income may reach about P20.8 billion. This level represents a decline of roughly 10 to 12 percent from the P24.3 billion recorded in 2024. Core net income may close between P18 billion and P19 billion, consistent with a period of earnings normalization.
Overall, GLO’s 2025 results indicate a phase of consolidation after the rebound in 2024. Revenues appear stable and margins remain strong. The decline in profit reflects cyclical pressures caused by high interest rates and competitive pricing, not structural weakness.
With a solid financial base, lower leverage, and a disciplined approach to capital allocation, GLO stands in a favorable position to recover earnings once economic and market conditions improve.
2| Know the financial position of the company
GLO’s financial position as of first nine months of this year reflects a stable and well-managed balance sheet. GLO’s current ratio improved from 0.56× to 0.63×. Although still below one, which is a common feature among capital-intensive telecom operators, this ratio points to a stronger short-term position supported by recurring cash inflows.
GLO’s cash reserves rose by P6.4 billion, or about 30 percent, to P27.7 billion, which reflects higher free cash flow and better working-capital efficiency. This improvement signals that the company has rebuilt its cash buffer while reducing reliance on short-term credit facilities.
GLO’s debt-to-equity ratio remained stable at 2.77×, while the debt-to-asset ratio stayed at 0.73×. These levels are within industry norms for telecom companies, where capital intensity and long payback periods often require high leverage. The structure of GLO’s debt portfolio has improved, as longer maturities reduce refinancing risk and provide greater cash-flow predictability. The equity-to-asset ratio strengthened slightly from 0.26× to 0.27×, a modest but positive sign of solvency improvement.
Despite flat revenue growth, GLO’s recurring earnings continue to support respectable returns. Using the estimated 2025 full-year net income of P20.8 billion and average equity of P171 billion, the company’s return on equity (ROE) stands at approximately 12.2 percent, slightly lower than the 2024 ROE of around 14.5 percent but still healthy for a mature telecom operator.
The decline mainly reflects the effect of higher depreciation and financing costs rather than weaker operations. To approximate return on invested capital (ROIC), which is computed as after-tax operating income over invested capital, GLO’s estimated EBIT for 2025 of roughly P37 billion, after tax, yields an ROIC of about 6.5 percent, close to the firm’s weighted average cost of capital (WACC) estimated at six percent. This shows that the company is earning at least its cost of capital, a sign of steady value preservation even in a flat-growth environment.
The increase in cash reserves, coupled with lower short-term borrowings and reduced capital spending, suggests that GLO generated sufficient operating cash to meet obligations and maintain dividends without additional external financing.
Its EBITDA margin above 50 percent continues to cover interest and lease expenses comfortably, which translates to stable operating cash inflows. The lower capex-to-revenue ratio of about 26 percent implies that more earnings now translate directly into free cash flow, which is a critical factor behind the rise in cash holdings and reduced liquidity risk.
3| Know the new engines of growth of the company
While the market currently values GLO primarily as a traditional telecom operator, a closer look at its balance sheet and portfolio reveals several underappreciated growth drivers that could unlock significant value over the next few years.
GLO’s venture arm, 917Ventures, has evolved into one of the country’s largest corporate incubators for digital innovation. Its most valuable asset, Mynt, operates the GCash platform, the Philippines’ leading mobile wallet with over 80 million registered users.
Based on recent private market transactions and analyst estimates, Mynt’s implied valuation hovers near $5 billion (P285 billion), which already exceeds Globe’s own market capitalization. Although GCash’s earnings are not fully consolidated into GLO’s income statement, the company owns a significant equity stake through Mynt Holdings, which contributed about P5.3 billion in equity income as of the first nine months of 2025, up 52 percent year-on-year.
This growing contribution highlights GCash’s potential to become a material earnings driver for Globe in the medium term. Any eventual IPO or strategic sale of Mynt could unlock substantial equity value, providing GLO with additional capital for debt reduction or reinvestment in its data and enterprise businesses. Beyond its valuation upside, GCash strengthens GLO’s digital ecosystem by enhancing customer loyalty and lowering churn across both mobile and broadband services.
Another strategic growth pillar lies in GLO’s partnership with ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC) and Ayala Corporation. Their joint venture to develop and operate hyperscale data centers positions GLO at the forefront of the Philippines’ digital infrastructure expansion.
The demand for data-center capacity is rising rapidly, fueled by AI adoption, cloud migration, and fintech usage, while local supply remains limited. With this joint venture, GLO transitions from a telecom operator into a key enabler of the AI and cloud economy, which captures a share of recurring, high-margin infrastructure revenues.
The asset-light nature of this partnership allows GLO to participate in a high-growth segment without bearing the full capital burden. The data-center business also diversifies GLO’s revenue base beyond consumer telecom and creates a stable long-term cash flow stream that could command higher valuation multiples compared to traditional telecom earnings.
This shift matters because it changes GLO’s revenue quality. Enterprise and digital services tend to deliver higher margins, lower churn, and more predictable cash flows compared to prepaid mobile revenues. The steady expansion of these businesses enhances the company’s resilience and provides new growth vectors independent of ARPU (average revenue per user) pressure in the saturated mobile market.
4| Know the valuation multiples of the stock
At P1,460 per share, GLO is trading near its lowest valuation range in nearly a decade, well below what its fundamentals would justify. Based on the company’s projected 2025 net income of P20.8 billion, GLO’s price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is roughly 10×, compared with its historical trading average of 12–14× during periods of stable profitability. This puts the current valuation at about 25–30 percent below its long-term norm.
If the stock were to revert merely to its historical 13× multiple, its fair value would reach roughly P1,880 per share, without even factoring in the value of Globe’s emerging digital assets.
That hidden value becomes clearer when examining the company’s investment in Mynt, the operator of GCash. Based on GLO’s financial statements, the book value of its investment in Mynt stood at P15.29 billion.
If we use Mynt’s estimated market valuation of around $5 billion, or roughly P285 billion, GLO’s 36 percent ownershiip of Mynt implies a fair value of P102.6 billion for its stake. This means Globe is carrying a potential unrecognized gain of approximately P87 billion, which remains off its balance sheet.
If that hidden value were reflected, GLO’s total equity would rise from P174.4 billion to roughly P261.7 billion, equivalent to net asset value per share of about P1,812. At the current market price of P1,460, investors are effectively buying GLO at a 20 percent discount to its adjusted net asset value and paying nothing for its growth options in fintech, data centers, and enterprise ICT.
GLO’s dividend yield adds another layer of value to its investment appeal. At current prices, the stock offers an annual dividend yield of roughly six to seven percent, one of the most generous among Philippine blue-chip companies.
What makes this even more compelling is that the payout is fully supported by free cash flow, not by additional borrowing or asset sales. After years of heavy network investment, GLO has transitioned into a strong cash-generating phase: capital expenditures have fallen sharply from over P70 billion during its tower expansion cycle to about P49 billion in 2024. This shift has freed up cash for shareholders while maintaining balance-sheet flexibility.
For long-term investors, the combination of reliable cash yields and underlying value growth potential provides an attractive total return opportunity rarely seen in today’s risk-averse market.
5| Know the trend of the stock price is headed
GLO’s chart now reflects a classic long-cycle correction nearing completion, as suggested by both Wave and Geometric count analysis.
The stock has traced what appears to be a five-wave impulse decline from its 2024 peak near P2,500 down to the present P1,450 level. This move fits the profile of a final Wave C in a larger corrective structure that began after its 2022 highs around P2,800–P3,000. The internal waves show a steady loss of momentum such as the sharp sell-offs in Waves 3 and 5 have occurred alongside lower trading volume, a hallmark of selling exhaustion and late-stage capitulation.
If this reading holds, GLO is now moving through the tail-end of Wave 5 of C, which implies that the multi-year downtrend is approaching its structural bottom, likely in the P1,350–P1,400 range where major historical supports lie.
The Geometric framework supports this interpretation. The drop from P2,450 to P1,450 represents nearly a 40 percent retracement, which aligns closely with a 2/3 retracement zone that often marks long-term reversal areas.
When plotted against GLO’s 2020 low near P1,200, the current price sits almost exactly at the intersection of its ascending 1×1 support angle, which indicates that price and time are converging for a potential cyclical turn.
According to Geometric framework’s 360-day timing rule, the stock’s major decline phase that began in early 2024 is set to complete by the first quarter of 2026, which aligns with the expected Wave count bottom window.
Taken together, both methods suggest that GLO is in the final stage of its correction and may soon enter an accumulation phase. The P1,350–P1,450 zone therefore represents a critical inflection area.
If price stabilizes and volume begins to rise, it could confirm a long-term bottom and the start of a new base-building pattern. A technical rebound toward P1,900 would mark the first retracement target, with a move above P2,000 signaling a confirmed trend reversal.
Henry Ong, RFP, is an entrepreneur, financial planning advocate and business advisor. Email Henry for business advice hong@financialadviser.ph or follow him on Twitter @henryong888
