Bayan trims 2009 losses

MANILA, Philippines - Lopez-owned Bayan Telecommunications posted a net loss of P505 million in 2009, 35 percent lower than the P777 million net losses suffered in 2008, as total revenues rose five percent to P6.63 billion.

Bayan also achieved a 29 percent earnings before interests, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) growth to P2.26 billion in 2009 from P1.76 billion the previous year. This led to P264 million in operating income, from a loss of P222 million in 2008.

Company officials also reported that Bayan’s data business, which includes DSL and other corporate data services, grew 28 percent in 2009 to P3.05 billion from P2.39 billion in 2008. Data business revenues account for about half of Bayan’s total revenue. Bayan’s DSL business grew 27 percent over the previous year at P1.19 billion, with subscribers close to 100,000 by yearend.

Meanwhile, the wireless landline business was flat, inching up one percent to P1.51 billion, as subscriber base stood at about 200,000 at the end of 2009.

In terms of its debt obligations under the rehabilitation plan, Bayan paid a total of P1.42 billion in 2009 for both principal and interest. This brings the company’s total debt-related payments to more than P5.92 billion since the rehab plan was implemented in July 2004.

Earlier, Bayan managing director Fred Bernardo said that they recognize their position in the industry “and we will make our business decisions accordingly.”

“This requires that everything that we do should be market and customer driven to maximize the utilization of our resources and capacity. If this means we have to review our current business portfolio and reallocate our resources, then we will take that direction as long as the results are better for Bayan and its current employees. But this also means that the end state is that we are offering to the market products and services of sustainable quality and acceptability,” he added.

Bayan has allocated a P1.4 billion capital expenditure budget this year, partly for the development of its broadband Internet services to cater to the growing needs of small and medium enterprises (SME).

In line with this, the company expects to grow its broadband subscriber base by double-digit rates this year, sustaining last year’s performance.

“Our growth in broadband was in the double-digit level last year and we expect another double-digit year in 2010,” Bayan business segment vice president Aniceto Franco III earlier said.

He said the company’s broadband base grew 40 percent in 2009 to more than 100,000 subscribers. “We expect to maintain that rate of growth, or maybe even surpass that,” he added.

Franco said the company is investing heavily on the National Digital Transmission Network (NDTN), a network of fiber-optic cables spanning the length of the entire country.

The NDTN is owned by a consortium of the country’s seven major telecommunications firms: Bayan, Smart Communications Inc., Globe Telecommunications Inc., Express Telecommunications, Eastern Telecommunications, Philippine Telephone & Telegraph Co. (PT&T) and Digital Telecommunications Inc. (Digitel). Bayan owns about 65 percent of the network.

Bayan is currently under corporate rehabilitation, which it entered in 2004 and is slated to end in 2023.