Bayan revenues jump 16% to P4.6B in 9 months

Lopez-owned Bayan Telecommunications said yesterday it sustained solid growth on the back of continued strong revenues from its wireless landline, Internet and corporate data businesses.

For the nine-month period ending September this year, Bayan’s total revenues grew 16 percent to P4.6 billion from P4 billion during the same period last year.

Bayan chief executive consultant Tunde Fafunwa said they are confident their revenue performance in 2008 will surpass their 2007 performance. “Our year-on-year growth validates the strategic initiatives we have implemented since 2006 to regain Bayan’s position as a major telecommunications player,” he noted.

Bayan’s two major business component, voice and data/Internet, posted impressive results compared to last year. As of September, voice revenues increased 15 percent to P2.8 billion from P2.4 billion during the same period last year. Voice revenues include revenues from landline service including the monthly rates paid by subscribers, domestic long distance (DLD) and international long distance (IDD).

The growth in voice revenues reflect the sustained success of Bayan wireless landline, which subscriber base more than doubled over the same period last year. Thus, revenue from its total landline service (wireless and wired subscribers) grew 26 percent as of the end of the third quarter to P2 billion.

However, the weaker value of the peso that resulted in unrealized foreign exchange losses contributed mainly to the net loss of P2.5 billion in the third quarter compared to a net profit of P490 million in the same period last year when the peso value was stronger.

Bayan expects to end the year with almost 200,000 postpaid wireless landline subscribers, which would almost double its total landline subscribers.

As of September 2008, data services revenue grew 20 percent to P1.8 billion from P1.5 billion last year. The main driver of growth was Internet revenues that include broadband Internet or DSL, as it posted a 36-percent revenue growth over the same period last year to P984 million.