Last year was the year the comfortable duopoly between the two main mobile operators in the Philippines cracked. Smart and Globe met price competition from a new rival, Sun Cellular. So Globe's achievement last year in increasing subs by 35% and net income by 50% while its market cap nearly doubled was all the more impressive. As Yankee Group senior analyst Shiv Putcha described it: "Globe's financial performance was strong in 2003 despite not having the biggest market share, its ARPU has stabilized and it has created new market opportunities with its use of micro-credit prepaid and innovations in distribution." The Philippines firm romped home in the GSM category, while president and CEO Gerardo Ablaza won by one point in the Best CEO division. "It's a very complex business," Ablaza says of managing a tele-corns company. "The technology is very fast, it changes rapidly, and one needs to have a little bit of an intuitive sense of what the technology enables."
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