Telcos to lean more on e-wallets for profit

January 2, 2026 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines —  The country’s biggest telcos may have to rely on their e-wallet units to cover revenue losses from mobile decline, but they have to address the impact of online gambling delinking.

In a Market Talks episode by COL Financial Group Inc., telco analyst Paolo Manansala said connectivity giants Globe Telecom Inc. and PLDT Inc. would have to depend on their e-wallets for profit growth.

As it stands, both Globe and PLDT are seeing revenue slowdown from their mobile segments, as they are finding little room for growth in a saturated market.

Luckily for them, Manansala said these telcos have e-wallets dominating in financial technology. Globe is receiving bigger equity from GCash parent Globe Fintech Innovations Inc. (Mynt), while PLDT is starting to make  profit from the Maya Group.

Globe’s share in Mynt’s equity earnings grew by more than half to P5.3 billion between January and September 2025. At this level, Globe sources a fourth of its pre-tax profit from Mynt.

Maya, for its part, recorded a profit of P1.6 billion during the period, contributing P603 million in equity to PLDT.

However, Manansala said GCash and Maya still have to plug revenue losses from their delinking with gambling sites as ordered by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) in August 2025.

The BSP instructed e-wallets like GCash and Maya to remove in-app links to online gambling as part of efforts to curb gaming addiction and tighten industry regulations.

“It is still something they would have to address given that there are some aspects of this delinking that go beyond transactions, such as the advertisements. Revenues generated from these segments would still remain gone,” Manansala said.

In spite of this, Manansala said online gambling would still be a revenue driver for e-wallets. For telcos, this could mean sustained earnings to mitigate the impact of mobile slowdown.

Both Globe and PLDT are suffering from revenue declines in their mobile arms, and they are not taking this sitting down, as they mount marketing efforts to attract new customers and come up with fresh services to increase consumer spend.

Globe’s mobile revenues have decreased by two percent to P86.2 billion as of September, while PLDT’s wireless earnings have slid to P63.2 billion.

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