TELECOMMUNICATIONS infrastructure company EdgePoint Infrastructure Sdn. Bhd. said it is targeting to increase its sites and the number of its tenants in the Philippines this year, banking on the company’s optimistic outlook for the industry in the country.
“We think it is extremely positive. That’s really why we’re investing in the Philippines, we think it is a great location for telcos,” EdgePoint Infrastructure Chief Executive Officer Suresh Sidhu said in a media briefing on Tuesday.
“We hope we can build another 100 to 200 new sites and we hope we can get somewhere between 100 to 200 new tenants,” he added.
At present, the company has around 2,500 telco towers in the country out of the over 13,000 sites it has across Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.
For this year, the company said it is expecting the delivery of the remaining 472 towers from PLDT Inc. which is part of the 2,934 telco towers it acquired from the listed telco company last year.
“I think before the end of this year everything should be done,” Mr. Sidhu said.
For its tenants, Mr. Sidhu said that he is pleased with the interest he sees from other telco companies such as DITO Telecommunity Corp. and Globe Telecom, Inc.
“We are currently working on the other telcos… I think we are having good discussions going on with it,” he said.
To date, the company’s sites are located in Metro Manila but it is also looking to expand in Visayas and Mindanao, said EdgePoint Philippines Chief Executive Officer Alexander C. Kiel.
“At the moment, the focused area is Luzon but we are looking at Mindanao and Visayas. That is something that we are actively pursuing,” Mr. Kiel said.
For Mindanao and Visayas, Mr. Sidhu said that EdgePoint could either partner with existing tower companies in the two areas or build new sites.
“The most likely opportunity is either a partnership or persuade one of the operators to give us the order to build new sites there,” he said.
Over the past six months, EdgePoint was able to increase the number of its towers by over 50% to almost 2,500.
“The first batch of sites that were turned over was around 1,500, which happened in June, now we are close to 2,500. So that’s more than 50% [growth] in the past six months,” EdgePoint Philippines Chief Financial Officer Vicente Francisco L. Araña said. — Justine Irish D. Tabile
