There is little doubt that the consumer gets a raw deal in the Philippines, as evidenced by broadband quality data. The long-term sustainable solution is a third and perhaps a fourth operator. But that prospect receded.
The Philippines’ San Miguel Corp (SMC), after failing to find a foreign partner to launch a third mobile operator in the country, announced it is selling its telecoms assets to incumbents PLDT and Globe Telecom for more than $1 billion, with each taking a 50 per cent stake.
The two operators, which together have a 99 per cent market share of mobile connections, will pay a total of PHP52.8 billion ($1.13 billion), which includes the valuable 700MHz spectrum. SMC’s telecoms assets are valued at an estimated PHP70 billion, including liabilities of PHP17.02 billion.
The agreement, which was signed this morning, comes as a major surprise and will see PLDT and Globe strengthen their control of the market, but it also requires the two companies to give up part of their spectrum holdings to the regulator to allow for the entry of a third operator.
3 Comments
Abu Saeed Khan
Competition commission claims Filipino duopoly not anti-competitive: https://www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/2016/06/01/competition-commission-claims-filipino-duopoly-not-anti-competitive/?utm_source=CommsUpdate&utm_campaign=de6a77206a-CommsUpdate+01+June+2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0688983330-de6a77206a-8807821
Mary Grace Santos
Abu, the Philippine Competition Commission is citing an antiquated telecom legislation which does not define what is anti-competitive or abuse of dominant market power and what the regulator can do in case of such occurrences. Also, the PhCC has yet to review the SMC telco sale as it has not received the proper notice from the two telcos and relevant documents from NTC.
Abu Saeed Khan
Well Grace, you have said it all! Thanks.
RECON-SL: A Sri Lanka Household Electricity Dataset for ML & AI Research
RECON-SL is an open dataset developed by LIRNEasia with funding support from the Lacuna Fund and in partnership with LECO. It combines electricity consumption records, smart meter readings, and household survey data from over 4,000 Sri Lankan homes to support energy policymaking, social research, and machine learning.
LIRNEasia Senior Research Manager Gayani Hurulle at the Internet Governance Forum Sri Lanka 2026
The Internet Governance Forum Sri Lanka (IGF Sri Lanka) 2026 was held on 23 September under the theme ‘Empowering the Internet in the Age of Intelligence through Multistakeholderism’. The event brought together stakeholders from government, industry, academia, civil society and the technical community to discuss key issues in internet governance.
Is Personally Identifiable Information safe in the hands of the State?
In an article published on 25 September 2026 in the DailyFT, LIRNEasia Chair Professor Rohan Samarajiva discusses the risks of the state holding large amounts of personally identifiable information (PII). He looks at the misuse of electoral-registry information during the July 1983 pogrom, which critics of public-service digitalisation, particularly the Sri Lanka Unique Identity (SLUDI), cite as a reason for extreme caution, if not halting such initiatives.
Links
User Login
Themes
Social
Twitter
Facebook
RSS Feed
Contact
9A 1/1, Balcombe Place
Colombo 08
Sri Lanka
+94 (0)11 267 1160
+94 (0)11 267 5212
info [at] lirneasia [dot] net
Copyright © 2026 LIRNEasia
a regional ICT policy and regulation think tank active across the Asia Pacific