CyberCafe Business in the Philippines
My future husband was born in the Philippines and moved to the United States with his mom and aunt when he was 5. His mom and aunt are approaching retirement and will be moving "back home" when that time comes. There seems to be a little bit of talk between the family here in the states and the small bits of family back in the Philippines about starting a CyberCafe or Internet Cafe. It has been suggested that the business would be built with my guy in mind to encourage him to move to the Philippines as well to take over the business. That would potentially mean me moving to the Philippines as well depending on the family business being successful enough to provide us a living. So, I've done a little bit of research to see what we may be getting into if this really does happen.
One of my first thoughts is how successful can CyberCafes be in the Philippines. Here in the United States CyberCafes are rare. Computers and internet access is common in most households. And to fill the niche for those households that don't have internet access but desire it, public libraries have computers available for free. Business travelers have computing centers in hotels and Kinko's type stores. The few instances of CyberCafes I can recall were for LAN gaming and even those never seemed to stay around for very long. But CyberCafes in other parts of the world are much more common as computers and Internet access in homes isn't.
In my research the answer to the question, "Can you build a successful Internet Cafe in the Philippines?" is ... maybe. Having never been to the Philippines, I'm basing my opinions based on what I've read on other blogs. Basically, the biggest factor is the location of the business. It needs to be in an area where there are not a lot, or any other, CyberCafes. It needs to be in an area where there is a lot of foot traffic or close to schools or residential areas, particular areas with lots of teenagers. The reason for wanting to be near areas with teenagers is that it seems CyberCafes oriented towards gaming are the best bet for success.
So, if you think you have found a great area for a CyberCafe what is next? It appears the recommendation is that you have a minimum of 10 to 20 computers in a CyberCafe. More would be desired in areas where there will be a lot of demand. Assuming you are building the CyberCafe to be geared towards gaming, it would be wise to have computers that are highly upgradable. Over time you'll want to add memory, install new video cards, upgrade the CPU and/or motherboard to keep up with the demands of popular video games. This will require that someone associated with the business be very familiar with computers. If you have to hire out for a technician, you may be at a disadvantage.
Then the next step is software for the computers. There are a variety of companies that license software to help manage user accounts and time allotments for customers. It appears that the going rates in the Philippines is 10 to 20php (or 25-50 cents in US currency) for an hour of time, with the preference towards the higher end of the range. (It appears that while there are cafes charging 10php, they may not be making a profit or be using properly licensed software.) In addition to software that helps manage customer access on the computers, there is a version of Steam for CyberCafes to help provide video games for your computers; this is as opposed to having to buy the latest games individually and a possibly greater cost.
The bottom line is that it appears CyberCafes can be a profitable business in the Philippines today. There are a variety of factors involved in that success, just as with any other business. There are a number of other issues I haven't touched on (auxiliary services such as printing, photocopying, cell phone services, and computer maintenance) or haven't even researched yet. At the same time, as the years go by, hopefully the Philippines will move forward, its citizens will earn more money, the country's infrastructure will improve. The result of that is more and more homes will have computers and Internet possibly resulting in CyberCafes no longer having a place. All of these are issues that any good business person will keep apprised of.
As for whether this is in my future... only time will tell.
