Good morning, welcome to the second quarter 2023 analyst briefing of Globe Telecom. We will begin with a video presentation of our performance and a few updates on the Globe Group , to be followed by the Q&A.
Welcome, everyone, thank you for joining us for our second quarter 2023 analyst briefing. We are happy to report that Globe posted sound operating and financial results in the first semester of this year, despite a number of macroeconomic headwinds encountered during the period. Globe achieved a new record on quarterly revenue of PHP 40.4 billion, which brought our first half revenue to PHP 80.4 billion, also a fresh all-time high. This strong revenue growth was driven by sustained growth in mobile and corporate data and supplemented by the robust performance of our non-telco services.
The sustained top-line improvement and our proven cost management resulted in EBITDA reaching PHP 40.5 billion for the first half of 2023, posting 5% sequential growth against the second half of 2022, which operated in a similar macroeconomic backdrop. First half EBITDA margin, which stands at 50%, is still within Globe's guidance for the full year. Normalizing EPS for the semester amounted to PHP 10 billion, higher by an impressive 14% sequentially, as a result of the solid revenue performance and the corresponding expansion in margins. Given these results, our board of directors approved the third quarterly cash dividend of PHP 25 per share, consistent with our declarations over the past few years. On our landmark sale and leaseback initiative, the tower transfer is progressing well.
Recently, Globe generated another PHP 1.4 billion from our first closing with Unity Digital Infrastructure last July. The company has now raised a total of PHP 49.3 billion from closings to date. We are also happy to announce that STT GDC Philippines, a joint venture between Globe, the Ayala Corporation, and Singapore-based ST Telemedia Global Data Centres, has broken ground on potentially the largest and most interconnected carrier-neutral data center in the country. These updates, as well as other operating and financial metrics, will be discussed in greater detail later in the presentation. Meanwhile, our strategic efforts from being telco to techco continues to bear fruit. Overall, non-telco revenues grew by 52% year-over-year to close to PHP 3 billion and now account for 3.5% of total Globe service revenue.
This was driven by growth across all our subsidiaries, with ECPay and Asticom contributing the most, followed by AdSpark and Yondu. Our joint ventures and affiliates are likewise contributing to our bottom line, with our net share and equity gains growing by 13% year-over-year to PHP 1.1 billion. Notably, our share in Mynt, in particular, continues to improve, reaching close to PHP 1 billion in the first half, which is higher by 63% year-over-year. Mynt continues to increase its positive contribution to Globe's bottom line, as it now accounts for 5.1% of the Globe Group income before tax. The wireless segment continues to benefit from the return to pre-pandemic levels of public mobility and growing data habituation, with second quarter revenue hitting PHP 22.4 billion.
Year-on-year, first half mobile revenue stood at PHP 54.8 billion, higher by 1%, driven entirely by growth in mobile data services. To put the performance into the proper perspective, this steady growth on the top line was despite the worsened macroeconomic environment the businesses operated this year compared to the same period last year. Data continued to grow, reporting a 5% year-on-year revenue growth, which more than offsets the continuing decline in mobile voice segments, which dropped by 13% and 10%, respectively. Mobile data now accounts for 80% of mobile revenues, from just 77% last year. On a sequential basis, the growing data habituation of Filipinos resulted in a 2% quarter-on-quarter improvement in revenue.
Total mobile revenues comprised 68% of the total consolidated service revenue, with the total mobile customer base standing at 82.9 million for the first six months of the year. The solid top-line growth was also evidenced by the continued spike in mobile data traffic, which hit more than 2,800 terabytes for the first half. Mobile data add too, likewise grew and is now at 13.0 GB per month, up by 25% year-over-year. This was mainly fueled by the growing popularity of streaming and user-generated content through social media. Globe remains to be the undisputed mobile leader in the Philippines, edging out competitors in its user count as it logged nearly 54 million registered SIMs as of July 30, the end of a five-day grace period following the seven months of nationwide registration.
Based on data released by the NTC, Globe has logged 53.7 million registered SIMs as of 11:59 P.M. on July 30, over 1.2 million higher than the nearest competition. This is equivalent to 62% of our total number of subscribers as of December 2022, and more importantly, represents over 99% of our revenue-generating subscriber base. This result is consistent with Globe's guidance that the SIM card registration exercise will not have any impact to Globe's top-line results for the year. To this day, we still experience higher levels of new acquisitions versus pre-SCR surge, more than enough to cover for any downside from SCR.
Globe logged a last-minute surge in SIM registrations after the deadline lapsed on July 25 and a grace period for reactivation started on July 26, recording nearly 4 million more registered and reactivated SIMs during the five day grace period. We would like to thank our customers for taking part in this exercise as we work together to curb spam , scams, and other forms of online fraud. On the other hand, the home broadband business closed the first half of the year with PHP 12.8 billion revenue from PHP 13.8 billion reported in the same period last year. The drop in the legacy and fixed wireless products was partly offset by the sustained expansion in both paid fiber subscribers and revenues, which improved by 10% and 23%, respectively. Fiber revenues are also buoyed by sustained ARPU as we focus on quality acquisitions.
As of the first half of the year, Globe had 1.1 million fixed wireless subscribers, lower by 49% year-over-year. We are happy to note that the decline in fixed wireless revenues and operating metrics have begun to slow down in the 2Q 2023, suggesting we may be nearing the bottom of this trend. The company, though, expects these fixed wireless metrics to continue to decline over the next four quarters, with revenues eventually dropping to around PHP 600 million from the PHP 986 million reported in the 2Q 2023, or approximately a 10% decline per quarter. Fixed wireless subscribers are likewise expected to normalize in the 3Q, post expiry of the SIM card registration period, as bulk of the subbase in our fixed wireless access products are prepaid.
This decline has been factored into the company's overall top-line guidance. On that note, and to help cushion this decline, we are happy to report that Globe officially launched the revolutionary offering, GFiber Prepaid , last July seventeenth. GFiber Prepaid is designed to reach the mass market segment, which remains to be underserved. It aims to democratize access to fiber connectivity, offering a no lock-up, pay-as-you-use promos, and buy now, pay later options through GCash. GFiber Prepaid also provides customers with a fully digital experience, from application to scheduling of installations, account management through the Globe One app. Also, as part of Globe's commitment to sustainability and circularity, GFiber Prepaid comes in recyclable and upcyclable packaging, which can be repurposed and used as a laptop stand.
Aside from mobile data, we continue to see great traction in corporate data services, with revenues growing by 11% year-on-year to PHP 9.1 billion in the first half. This was mainly spurred by strong demand for information and communications technology services, which grew 36% year-on-year as Globe continued to support businesses in their digital transformation journey. Consistent with the company's efforts to bring free cash flow back to more sustainable levels, Globe invested PHP 37.7 billion in capital expenditure in the first six months of the year, 25% lower than the same period last year. This is in line with our guidance, with CapEx dropping to PHP 71.5 billion or $1.3 billion in 2023.
Bulk or 90% of this CapEx was allotted for data requirements as Filipinos continue to increase their time connected to the internet for telework, school, social media, entertainment, and online shopping, among others. As of June 2023, Globe built 542 new cell sites and upgraded 5,087 mobile sites to LTE in order to meet the rising demands of our customers. We also deployed around 148,000 fiber-to-the-home lines, significantly lower than last year's rollout, in order to maximize the utilization of our existing fiber inventory. As a 5G pioneer in the Philippines, Globe continues to deploy 5G wireless technology nationwide.
During the period, we launched up 356 new 5G sites across the Philippines, increasing our 5G outdoor coverage to 97.44% of the national regions and 91% in key cities in Luzon and Mindanao. Globe logged 5.2 million 5G connections, reaching the 5 million mark in its 5G network for the month of June 2023. As part of our commitment to bring down CapEx spending and bring the company to free cash flow positive territory, the company has already guided purchase order issuances in 2023, which will dictate CapEx in the next two to three years. Purchase order issuances or PO issuances will become the company's CapEx payment commitment once fees become due. Typically, a PO issuance is paid in tranches over one to three years, depending on the terms of the negotiated contract.
These terms would include provisions for down payments, retention, as well as agreed milestones of a project that will trigger cash payments. As these POs are paid, they get recorded as spend of the company for the year. Therefore, high historical PO issuances will lead to high future CapEx spend and vice versa. Globe is coming off of periods of high PO issuances , spending over $7 billion from 2019 to 2022. Purchase orders for the period increased as the company maximized the opportunities provided by the easing of the permitting process brought about by the Anti-Red Tape Law, which was put in place during the pandemic. The company likewise significantly expanded its fiber footprint during this period, rolling out over 3 million ports.
This frontloading of investment has been critical to our efforts to become the country's most consistent network and take advantage of the favorable interest rate environment relative to where we are currently. In 2023, aided by this investment, Globe's efforts shifted from opportunistic expansion to maximization of network investments to increase utilization. Target full year PO issuances will be limited to PHP 33 billion, or roughly $600 million, which is only one-third of the historical annual PO average . This drop in PO issuances will allow the company to deliver its CapEx guidance to the market of $1.3 billion CapEx this year, and $1 billion in 2024, and allow the company to get to free cash flow positive territory sooner, without sacrificing network quality and customer experience.
As proof of the company's sufficient investment in the network and bolstered by efforts in network improvement, Globe was recognized by Ookla as the most reliable mobile network in the Philippines for the fifth time in a row. Globe achieved the highest consistency score of 83.64% in the first and second quarter of 2023. Based on analysis by Ookla of Speedtest Intelligence data, Globe also posted speed improvements for mobile download and upload speeds in 127 places in the Philippines. In addition, Globe earned the Most Available All Technology Mobile Network title, and was also deemed the most consistent fixed broadband in some areas in Metro Manila and several provinces in the country for 2Q 2023. Globe has also been named the Philippines' Strongest Brand by Brand Finance, the world's leading independent brand valuation and strategy consultancy.
In its 2023 annual report on the most valuable and strongest Filipino brands, Brand Finance highlighted Globe's impressive triple A brand strength rating and brand value of $2.028 billion. These achievements underscore Globe's exceptional performance across its range of services. Moving on to Fintech. In our growth journey, the focus of GCash has been on democratizing access to as many Filipinos as possible, while building a ubiquitous ecosystem to support it. The true impact of GCash is in its indispensability as Filipinos' everyday companion that introduces and brings them towards digital financial services. We have become the most dominant platform, with active users 5x and 10x that of the next e-wallet in terms of monthly and daily active users, respectively, as per reputable third-party provider data.ai.
We have built the largest digital financial ecosystem for our users, extending all the way to the grassroots level. At the end of the quarter, our merchant and social seller base stood at around 6 million. Our cash in and cash out outlets were at 732,000, and small-scale community outlets were at 935,000. The strength of our cashless ecosystem was proven during the launch of the BSP coin deposit scheme. As the only supported e-wallet during the launch of the scheme, we are proud to announce that most of the coins deposited in the scheme were credited to GCash. The strength of the GCash brand was also showcased in the latest public report, where GCash bested well-known banks with an 80% endearment and trust rating, almost 2x higher than competition.
All these show that we are ubiquitous and relevant to the lives of every Filipino. We continue to make a difference as we open inroads to financial services to the unbanked and underbanked. We have now extended loans to over 3 million unique borrowers, disbursing PHP 90 billion of loans life to date through game-changing products such as GCredit, GLoan, and GGives, which are all powered by our GScore. This is the core of our vision of finance for all, as over 60% of our borrowers come from lower socioeconomic classes and over 60% are women borrowers. On insurance, we have sold through our GInsure platform over 11 million policies life to date. With our GInsure partners, we continue to offer a demystified array of insurance products for health, accidents, income loss, travel, all within a few clicks on a smartphone, providing peace of mind for our users.
On wealth, our GSave registered base grew to almost 9 million, a 35% growth year-over-year. We achieved this through differentiated and seamless product offerings across our growing list of GSave partners. The GFunds registered base increased to 5 million, up 53% year-over-year, democratizing what was otherwise investment opportunities reserved for a few by allowing users to invest in various funds for as low as PHP 50. Recently, we also launched GStocks PH, which allows our users access to trade stocks of over 280 listed companies in the Philippine Stock Exchange. This is through our partnership with AB Capital . We also introduced GCrypto in the market through our partnership with PDAX. Both these products are geared to break the hurdles of traditional investing through our digital platform.
The Filipino remains at the heart of GCash's success. This is built on our users' trust in the platform and the brand. We remain focused on innovating to ensure the safety and security of our consumers and to honor that trust. As part of our efforts, GCash Double Safe and facial recognition is another layer to users on top of MPIN and OTP. Double Safe works in conjunction with other security features we have instituted, such as no links in SMS and email, name masking, and sending all notifications through app inbox. We have successfully rolled out Double Safe to 100% of users. We have likewise doubled down on increasing awareness of these scams through our GSafeTayo media campaign. We likewise work closely with influencers and legal group companies to educate the public on security and prevention.
As fraud and scam is an industry concern, we have increased collaboration with authorities, law enforcement agencies, and regulatory bodies, actively working with the NBI, PNP, and CICC, among others, to heighten awareness against cybercrime. Lastly, together with the Fintech Alliance, we have launched a nationwide cybersecurity awareness and education campaign, standing together with one voice against scams and fraud. Working together with these authorities, we have shown heat to our campaign against fraudsters and scammers. We have blocked more than 4 million fraudulent accounts, taken down over 800 phishing sites, and taken down more than 38,000 malicious social media posts and accounts. On the back of that trust, we likewise stay the course and focus on providing our customers greater access to financial services. The launches of GStocks and GCrypto and NFT are milestones that we are proud of.
Through these innovations, we are able to further democratize access to financial services. Moving on to other updates within the Globe Group . As stated earlier, STT GDC Philippines has broken ground on potentially the largest and most interconnected carrier-neutral data center in the country. Strategically located in one of the largest cities in Metro Manila, STT Fairview will span over 83,000 square meters and will be made up of four buildings. It is expected to provide a development potential of 124 MW of design IT capacity once fully built out, with an initial phase of operations planned for early 2020. In addition, STT GDC Philippines has expanded its capacity by a total of 5.2 MW in response to high market demand and the continuing digital transformation of the country.
It now has a total clinical design IT capacity of 22 MW across its five operating data centers. These developments put STT GDC Philippines in a better position to meet the current data demand in the market, as well as address the future requirements of our customers, which will translate to future growth and growth. For our corporate builder arm, we are happy to announce that 917Ventures has vetted over 500 ideas, launched 26 ventures, and now have a total portfolio of 14 companies. Just this year, it spun off three new portfolio companies: PetPal, are fast and accessible pet care and pet lifestyle solutions and products; Alta, our broker productivity suite that provides quality leads and concierge-level support; and Capitan, our tech-enabled consulting services to handhold Filipino entrepreneurs.
For other highlights from the existing portfolio, 917Ventures has broken 1,400 merchants acquired or served this year for RUSH. We've placed 200 and have 1,440 graduates for KodeGo and have reached over 17,000 tutoring sessions for EdVenture. Lastly, as part of 917Ventures' ongoing mission to create and promote climate tech and sustainability solutions in the country, together with Ayala Corp and Gogoro, we are planning to launch Gogoro smart scooters and battery swapping technology in the country, with public availability in Metro Manila by the fourth quarter of 2023. Moving on to the financial portion of our presentation.
To summarize the earlier points, gross service revenues for the first half came in at a record of PHP 80.4 billion, 2% higher against the comparable period to H 2022, which, as mentioned earlier, operated in a similar macroeconomic backdrop . Coupled with operating expenses declining sequentially, first half EBITDA improved by 5% to PHP 40.5 billion, or 50% of service revenue. Normalized net income for the semester stood at PHP 10 billion, posting an impressive 14% growth, while core net income, which excludes the impact of non-recurring charges and foreign exchange and mark-to-market charges, amounted to PHP 9.9 billion, 22% higher than. On a year-on-year basis, first half revenues improved by 2%, while operating expenses increased by a faster rate of 4%. Despite this, however, our EBITDA remains stable, with margins well within our full-year guidance.
The higher OpEx was largely attributed to the step-up in costs for repairs and maintenance, administrative expenses, services, and others, as well as depreciation, partly cushioned by lower marketing and subsidies, staff costs, leases, and provisions. Reported net income of PHP 14.4 billion was lower year-on-year, owing to the one-time gain on the partial sale of Globe's data center assets in the same period this year. Core net income decreased in first time year-on-year due to higher expenses related to lease liabilities from the sale and leaseback. Meanwhile, second quarter revenues hitting PHP 40.4 billion, a 1% improvement quarter-on-quarter. Operating expenses increased by 5% and reached PHP 20.5 billion, leading to a llower level of PHP 20 billion .
Reported net income for the second quarter amounted to PHP 7.1 billion, while normalized net income reached PHP 4.9 billion. Looking at our costs, total operating expenses and subsidy increased by PHP 1.6 billion in the semester, attributable mostly to higher network costs as our network continues to expand. Specifically, we saw increases in our usage fee charges and repairs and maintenance costs. These increases were partially offset by a decline in lease expenses that were reassessed and reclassified as capitalized leases, as well as a reduction in total marketing costs, driven by the conscious effort to lower overspending. Provisions were likewise lower by PHP 406 million. These movements led to EBITDA remaining stable for the semester at PHP 40.5 billion. Our EBITDA margin, again, of 50%, is still well within our full year guidance.
As an update to the market on our sale and leaseback initiative, we are pleased to report that the turnover of to the buyers continues to progress. To date, we have turned over 3,866 sites, which is around 51% of the total tower portfolio. For MIDC, we have turned over 1,020 towers, which is 47% of their portfolio, while we have transferred over 1,980 towers, or 56% to Frontier. For PhilTower, we've turned over an aggregate 710 towers, or 53% of its total portfolio. Last month, Globe generated another PHP 1.4 billion for the first closing with our partner, Unity Digital Infrastructure. This translates to 115 towers, accounting for 26% of their total tower sale.
Last month, Globe generated another PHP 1.4 billion for the first closing with our partner, Unity Digital Infrastructure. This translates to 115 towers, accounting for 26% of their total sale in the portfolio. As mentioned earlier, our board of directors also approved the payout of PHP 25 per share, which, on an annualized basis, is equivalent to 75% for the maximum of our dividend payout range of 60%-75% per year's core net income. This is proof of Globe's commitment to a sustainable dividend policy that is in line with our earnings and cash flow generation, as well as to our commitment of delivering value to our shareholders. Key dates for this declaration are the payment dates of September 8, 2023, to shareholders on record as of August 29, 2023. Moving on to our balance sheet.
Gross debt level is at PHP 250 billion, with unrestricted cash level of PHP 25.4 billion, higher by 41% year-to-date. All ratios are well within our bank covenants and in line with peers, despite the challenging macroeconomic environment. They remain comfortably within bank covenants and are expected to improve in the near term, in line with our efforts on shoring up free cash flow and controlling CapEx spending. Lastly, the current macroeconomic environment and industry conditions have prompted us to revisit and revise our outlook for 2023. For service revenue, we are tempering our guidance to mid to low single digit growth versus the high base from last year, as consumers continue to struggle with the extended inflationary pressures that strain disposable income.
Despite these external pressures, though, as evidenced by the weaker GDP figures for the second quarter of 2023, we are very confident in being able to deliver overall growth to the top line. Furthermore, we maintain our EBITDA margin guidance of 50%. On the SIM card registration front, as mentioned earlier, we have registered over 99% of our revenue generating subscribers, underscoring our previous guidance of the SCR having no impact on the top line. Finally, we reiterate our major comments for our 2023 and 2024 CapEx spending.
As discussed earlier, our CapEx spend for the year will remain at approximately $1.3 billion, a reduction of over 30% from 2022 levels, as we shift our focus to optimizing capital deployment and leveraging existing capacity to bring free cash flow to more sustainable levels without sacrificing network quality and performance. This guidance will be enabled by a reduction in PO issuance for the year to only $600 million, owing to the opportunistic front loading of investments during the last four years. This deep reduction will directly impact spending over the next few years and allow us to drop CapEx further to $1 billion in 2024. These efforts show the company's commitment to deliver quality results while maintaining financial stability. That ends the presentation. We thank you very much for listening.
Before we begin the Q&A session, we'd like to introduce our panel. Mr. Ernest Cu, our President and Chief Executive Officer is joining us virtually. Also here in person are the following: Mr. Froilan Castelo , General Counsel, Ms. Issa Cabreira, Chief Commercial Officer, Mr. Darius Delgado, Vice President of Consumer Mobile Business, Mr. Joel Aquino, Senior Vice President for Network Planning Engineering, Mr. Raymond Policarpio , Vice President for Globe Broadband Brand Management , Ms. Martha Sazon, President and CEO of Mynt, Mr. Vince Yamat, Managing Director, 917Ventures, Mr. Carlo Malana, Chief Executive Officer, STT GDC, and Mr. Carlo Puno, Vice President of Corporate Finance. We now begin the Q&A session. Please note, however, we have a hard stop at 10:25. First set of questions come from Gio Dela Rosa of UBS Partners. First question, I believe, is for Raymond.
Can you give some color on the take-up of the G Fiber Prepaid? How many of your wide home broadband subscribers are increasing?
Thank you. Good morning. Thanks, Gio, for that question. We recently launched G Fiber Prepaid last July 20. It's too early to comment right now on its performance. We've gotten very good feedback and positive sentiments from the market about it, and we continue to see its potential. What we've been hearing, what we've been gathering from the market is, they, what they like about it is that there's no need for documents, the convenience of the application process, the fact that there's no backup. The price points are quite acceptable to the market. We, we continue to see it as an opportunity for us, but unfortunately, we can't comment right now on the performance. Too early to call. Thank you.
Okay, thanks, Raymond. The next question, I believe, is for Darius, on SIM registration. Can you give us an estimate of the % revenue that the registered SIMs account for?
Thank you for that question. Good morning, everyone. As also presented earlier, we have effectively covered 99% of our revenue base, with the balance being adequately covered by sustained levels of new acquisitions. With even the other day, we have achieved at least 50% more in terms of new acquisitions versus the SCR deadline rendered, and that fully mitigates any risk that SCR may pose in our revenues.
Okay. Thank you, Darius. The next question is from Gabriel Madrid of PEP. Question is: How many subscribers does Prepaid Fiber currently have, and is it on track to reach 20,000 subs by year-end? Also, are the majority of these subs new subscribers, or is the growth coming from migration from fixed wireless?
It's too early to call the incoming the performance, but I'd like to say that as far as expectations are concerned, we expect that the growth will come from the key mass segments, particularly those who are financially challenged, those who need a more consistent fiber line. To the question about fixed wireless, fixed wireless was a positive source of growth no, as we start moving to fiber. Thank you.
Thanks, Raymond. The next question is for Carlo Puno. On OpEx, can you provide more color on the increase in repairs and maintenance costs? Why are tower maintenance costs higher, despite many towers already having been sold off?
The increase in repairs and maintenance costs is effectively driven by two things. First, there is a natural increase because of the expansion of our network. There are some assets and some infrastructure assets that are coming out of warranty, those that we fired up in 2020 and 2021, which as presented, were some of the peaks in terms of our build-out. That's the first reason. The second reason is, it is also in repairs and maintenance where we record business application solutions.
These are the costs related to deliver ICT revenues, which are actually increasing as well, record levels, if I'm not mistaken. Lastly, the increase related to the tower, the tower sale and lease back or the tower maintenance. It is a function of how we structured the transaction. In the normal sale and lease back, the whole lease back rate would be a lease rate. However, we negotiated with towercos to split up that lease rate into 70. If you take, for example, the PHP 100,000 lease rate on an average tower, PHP 70,000 would be attributable to leases, PHP 30,000 would be attributable to OpEx.
We negotiated this way so that only the 30% actually escalates year-on-year, rather than the whole thing escalating in a typical lease sale and lease back. It's beneficial for the company. However, this whole PHP 30,000 though, gets booked in repairs and maintenance, and therefore, as we sell about as we turn over our towers, we don't expect that portion to increase. However, from a holistic perspective, it doesn't capture the whole story because there are reductions in our depreciation related to the sale. There's reduction in other costs like security, interest expense. However, the booking of that new OpEx line related to the tower sale and lease back is only in one line item. Yes.
Thanks, Carlo. The next question is for Martha.
Is there any GPV or gross transaction value guidance for GCash for 2023 or 2024?
We don't report GPV anymore, this will be remains on the uptrend. The level of engagement on the app remains strong, and it's reflecting the growth of transactions being made in the app. Just to give you a flavor of the trend, our daily average transaction year-on-year have grown 1.5x . In the use case, diversity has also increased from a low, you know, I don't think I'm allowed to revise. Use case diversity has increased.
It's okay, Martha. We know that it's been an increasing trend definitely.
The next question is from Warren Phillip Muski of SB Equities. I think this question on in terms of expenses has already been asked and answered earlier. We just shared the answer with our Warren offline. The next set of questions come from Adele Bermudez of Maybank Securities . The first question on super registration, I think this was already answered earlier by guys. We just shared the answer with Adele offline. The next question is for Carlo. How much does Carlo Puno , to be more specific, how much does Globe expect to recognize its gain on sale from the sale and leaseback at Frontier Tower this year? Also, how much would be the expected total cash consideration for the same?
For the whole year, I think we were expecting around PHP 12 billion post-tax gain. That's assuming we actually are able to turn over all of the sites this year. Total cash proceeds for the whole initiative is around PHP 97 billion, of which we already got PHP 20 billion last year and around, I think, PHP 20 billion year to date July. We're looking at maybe around another PHP 47 billion.
Okay. Thanks, Carlo. Third and last question from Adele is, it's a housekeeping question. What is Globe's LTE smartphone penetration rate and number of active data users, guys, can you help us with this?
Okay, I'll take that question. LTE phone penetration or smartphone penetration within the Globe base is 95% driven across the 3 brands, but most notably driven by Globe Prepaid and postpaid, who are the early adopters in digital. Our active mobile data users as of the second quarter is 37.5 million.
Okay. Thank you, guys. Next set of questions come from the same UBS. Again, guys, this is for you. Sorry, the question is for you. Global revenue growth for Globe is at 2%, mainly subdued. What portion of that subdued growth could you attribute to competition? Also, we are seeing competition improvement and pricing increases in markets like Thailand, Indonesia and India. Can the Philippines follow that path?
Thank you for that question again. Just for context, based on the Q2 declarations on a clearly two-player model industry perspective, we grew faster than industry at 2.5% quarter-on-quarter. The industry just grew 1.8%, so we were technically driving industry growth. That's actually good growth amidst the persistent economic constraints that the market is being faced with. Also, we've been doing a round of solely optimization and tight ups across all of our brands, especially the prepaid brands, starting Q4 last year. That's why you will also notice in the MD&A, we have disclosed increases in ARPU Q on Q, and led by TM, which is the postpartum, a 2% improvement in ARPU, followed by Globe Prepaid at 5%.
Okay, thank you, guys. The next question is for Raymond. What led to why broadband starts declining by around 13,000 second quarter? Should we expect broadband revenue to stabilize in the third quarter?
Thanks for the question. This is the result of us continuing our tighter acquisition-based management policies, no. We put it in place as we focus on subscriber quality. This allowed us to sustain our ARPU, the highest in the industry, which buoyed our revenues in a highly competitive market, you know, even as we focus on quality acquisition, like I said. In spite of this, our fiber revenues continue to grow on a year-on-year basis. Total broadband revenues should be stable as we push ahead with our FTTH programs, both in postpaid and prepaid. Thank you.
Thank you, Raymond. The next question is for Issa, I believe. Enterprise revenues and total data revenues, it only improved by 1% Q on Q, on a year-on-year basis as well, it slowed down. What drove it, and what is the outlook for the second half?
Hello there. Good morning. Happy to say we did outperform competition in this enterprise space. It is a challenge stream, given the extended macroeconomic challenges and as well as the heightened competition in this space. We're seeing other players also coming into the enterprise, with them wanting to maximize also their CapEx investments. However, we don't provide specific guidance on this revenue stream of ours, as it is, it is baked in what we give as an overall revenue guidance. We continue to make investments in this space, given the growth opportunity that we see. One of the big drivers of which is actually our big play and investment in the data center space. Which will help grow revenues for this business for us in the coming years with our partner STT GDC.
At this point, I will hand over to Carlo Malana, who can give you a little bit more flavor on our DC investment and our plans.
Thank you. Thank you, Elsa. Good morning. To address that continuing and growing demand for digital infrastructure. We've seen it with increases in digital and cloud. In the foreseeable future as well, we'll see the trend for AI and machine learning. You know, we really wanted to address this. We broke ground on STT Fairview in May this year, after a little over a year since we started the company. This will be the largest, most interconnected carrier-neutral and sustainable data center in the Philippines, with a capacity of 124 megawatts when fully built out. We have started work on the site. We expect to be operational early 2025.
In the meantime, as I said earlier, we have expanded the capacity in our existing data centers, which will be online this year, putting in 5.2 megawatts of IT capacity by October. Happy to also say that a significant amount of this capacity has already been taken. We are also focused on building digital infrastructure talent in the country, and announced our partnerships with several universities last month. We've seen quite an uptick in customer interest in this space, especially from hyperscalers seeking to expand their local presence in the country. Thank you.
Thanks, Carlo. Next question, of course, is for Martha again, and this is a very classic question. With improving GCash profitability, what are the plans for its IPO?
Well, our plan is to be push button ready. We're focused on growth and in keeping our platform safe and secure for our customers. We recognize, though, that the market is depressed, we continue to monitor the situation and the developments globally and locally. In terms of fundraising, we have enough funds. As you know, we're profitable, I think we've created a runway that allows us to delay and return to the capital markets, be private or public, until the most opportune time, we have the flexibility. Hopefully, the situation improves, the external situation improves, so that we can talk more about IPO. Thanks.
Thank you, Martha. At this point, we'll now take questions from the floor. For those who would like to ask questions, please come in front and speak in the mic. Please identify yourself, your company, then ask your question. Thank you very much.
Hi, good morning, everyone. I'm Derek from CLSA. We have several questions for the prepaid fiber front. First, obviously, with the prepaid fiber thing, ARPU is going to be more compressed on a blended basis for the home broadband. How are margins for prepaid versus your base postpaid plans? Second, still in prepaid fiber, is your strategy more on utilizing existing ports, or will there be additional, you know, CapEx increases according to your expansion plans outside the metro area? How are speeds for prepaid fiber in the data cap compared to your base postpaid plans and your fixed wireless, which is currently declining? Lastly, on the data center front, what's the current data center utilization for the full your SDPG? That's it. Thanks. All right, thanks.
I, I'll try to answer all of the questions. I forget one, just a minute. On the, on the prepaid margins, no. We do expect ARPU to be lower than what we're currently getting, but that's expected already. That should be compensated by the volume that we expect to get from the acquisitions. In terms of margins, we've, we've been trying to bring down our costs to zero in order to keep a healthy margin. Expectation-wise, prepaid, the prepaid margins from a percentage perspective won't be as far off from, from where we are at in postpaid, if not better, considering some cost factors would be knocked out from a prepaid execution compared to a postpaid execution.
In terms of utilization, what we intend to do is currently, it's, it's maximizing what we currently have. So we're utilizing current facilities, and we have a lot of them anyway, that we, we've been using for postpaid, so we'll be using the same, so we don't expect much additional CapEx to serve the, the forecast that we have, so far for prepaid. In terms of speed, the prepaid, the blue fiber prepaid is currently pegged at 50 Mbps. Comparing that to your postpaid, your postpaid has a vast range of speeds, you know, so the premium speeds would need to be, for the prepaid, sorry, for the postpaid users. That's it.
If I may-
Maybe perhaps I can chime in as well on the margin side of prepaid versus postpaid. Now, the product itself, broadband, a prepaid broadband, was designed to be profitable, as, as Raymond said, if not more profitable than postpaid.
... Remember, the acquisition mode for this is purely digital. You know, there, it's all on the GlobeOne app . There is no human intervention. There are no sales people going knock door to door, like what we do with, with postpaid. You know, there, there's no heavy store acquisition as well. There's also limited access to customer service. It's also done through app, so that minimizes cost as well. Then there's no billing, and there's no bad debt in churn. Or there is churn, but it's not, it's not like the churn we have in postpaid where we have subsidized installation, we have subsidized the modem. Here, there's an upfront payment for the modem and installation that's included in, in the first month's charge.
The charge for the kit. It's really been designed to increase profits by removing as much cost as possible from, from the process. We do expect, just like, in the mobile space, that, you know, the profitability of prepaid will mirror, if not exceed, that of postpaid in the future as we gain scale. Sorry, Issa, sorry, I cut you off.
No, exactly the same. It was exactly what I was gonna say. Exactly what I was saying. Thank you.
Did you-- I think there was a question as well on data center utilization.
Yes, in, in terms of our utilization today, I'm happy to say that, you know, our existing centers are well past the, I would say, 90% range in terms of utilization. That's what's driving the immediate increase in the current capacity in the existing centers, that 5.2 megawatts. We're putting that in this year. Our longer term play, of course, is to utilize and build up new capacity in the greenfield data center in Naic, Cavite.
Thank you for that. Are there any more questions from the floor, please?
Hi, Peter Ngo from China Banking Corporation. My question is for the mobile business. I just wanted to get a sense where ARPUs are getting growth , in registration. Thank you.
They're kinda at the same affinity as what we have discussed in the MD&A. As I want to repeat now, we are growing ARPU Q on Q, on the Globe Postpaid side at 4%. The true winner in terms of ARPU increases is actually the mass market brand, local TM, which has gained ARPUs by 8% QoQ. The growth in the ARPUs was sustained, as you've seen, the top ups really get, not get impacted by FCIR.
Thank you.
Are there any more questions from the floor before we turn it over to Ernest for his closing remarks?
Okay, that concludes the Q&A portion. Thank you to all those who sent in their questions, both online and on the floor. Ernest, do you have your closing remarks you can share?
Yeah, thank-thanks, Jamie, thanks everyone for joining us today. I just wanted to give you my take on the business, you know, in the next 5 minutes. I guess the mobile business you've seen, I believe it's quite strong, given relative performance to competition, to both the other, the 2 other players in the market, particularly with, with the larger player. We've grown very well. Of course, there's headwinds coming.
We know that the economy has been slowing down from 6% to 4%. We don't know where that is leading to. Hopefully that will be offset a little bit with inflation also tempering itself and coming down to the low single digits. We're very optimistic about the prospects on the mobile side of the business. As Darius said, TM brand has been gaining. I believe by our own numbers, it is now the 3rd largest revenue brand in the market. We believe that that's going to continue. The competitive environment has been quite benign. You know, we've been, we've been able to move some pricing up slowly. It seems like competition is also responding well to that. There has been no outbreaks of any price wars whatsoever.
We think that both the major players are also focusing on improving the profitability of their respective businesses. On the broadband side, we are continuing to be very optimistic as well about our prepaid business. The response from the public who have, you know, tried it, forgot about it, you know, and, and tried it and found that the experience has been very, very good. We will have to see how well this continues and how well and how fast we can get to educate people about the availability of this product, which we feel really suits the rest of the households today that don't have fiber, you know.
On the CapEx front, you've heard that we have been tempering our spend, focusing more on utilizing what we've built in the past two years, with the availability of the ease of licensing. We had a break, I think, in the last quarter as well, when the executive order extending a lot of the relief on licensing and permitting was provided by President BBM. We're very happy that that continues, because that will allow both power poles and telcos to continue their rollout- without the impediment of excessive permits. On the GCash front, you heard Martha say that momentum is continuing.
There is one aspect that we are, have been focusing on inside GCash, it is improving the security so that we maintain the trust that the public has, and we built up with the public over the past five or six years. We know the public very much depends on GCash today for their financial transactions and their financial well-being and their financial life. It is just incumbent for on us to ensure that the app remains very, very secure, and that we put in as many safeguards as we can to eliminate fraud, minimize fraud, minimize spoofing, minimize account takeovers, and the like.
What you will hear from us, in the future is a continued cooperation as well with the DOJ and the various law enforcement authorities, to try and get a lot of these scammers who've been, you know, I would say, ruining a good thing for us all. They're present not only in Fintech, but they're also present in e-commerce, and I think that's something that we need to all work together to prevent, no? We're very much a proponent of the Anti-Mule Act that we've been trying to sponsor and push Congress to pass. Which is the pushing people to understand that you know, allowing or selling bank accounts, selling GCash accounts, selling your identity for that matter, will be a crime, punishable under the law.
You will be treated as an accessory to the crime if ever there was one committed using your name. We're, we're, we're quite aggressive to pursuing that. Of course, in the new business front, you heard Carlo. We have good momentum on our data center business. We've broken ground on a very large complex, which goes to show that not only ourselves, but also our partner, ST Telemedia DC, is also very bullish on the Philippines as a data center location for hyperscalers and global players whereabouts, no? nine months, 917Ventures continues on its incubation and building of business building efforts.
You know, our KonsultaMD business is also gaining momentum, and you'll hear a lot more from us in the coming quarters on what we intend to do with that business. Once again, thank you very, very much for today's participation and all the questions that you were asking. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Ernest. On that note, we conclude the third quarter 2023 analyst briefing with Globe Telecom. We should thank you again for joining us here on the call. Hope you'll join us again for our third quarter 2023 analyst briefing, early November 2023 . Again, we wish everyone a pleasant good morning. Stay safe out there. Thank you.