Digitel posts P851-million profit in 9 months

MANILA, Philippines - Digital Telecommunications Philippines Inc. (Digitel), the telecommunications unit of Gokongwei flagship firm JG Summit Holdings Inc., swung to profitability in the nine months ending September this year, earning P850.8 million compared with a net loss of P310.6 million in the same period a year earlier.

The significant turnaround in its financial performance was fueled by a rise in revenues on account of the 27.7 percent growth in Digitel’s wireless business under the brand Sun Cellular,

In a financial report submitted to securities regulators, Digitel said consolidated revenues climbed 18 percent to P12.12 billion from P10.28 billion. Revenues from the wireless business amounted to P9.53 billion, higher than the P7.47 billion recorded a year ago.

Net service revenues improved substantially by 26.9 percent, mainly due to the continued success of the unlimited service portfolio (e.g. 24/7 Call & Text Unlimited and Text Unlimited) and increase in subscriber count from the Plan 350, Group Plans, Plan 350 products and Sun Broadband Wireless (SBW).

Sun Cellular pioneered the unlimited service that has become a permanent company offering as its rivals had followed suit but offer such scheme only as promos. It now has over 15 million prepaid subscribers and one million postpaid customers.

The increase in revenues was also attributed to aggressive network rollouts, continuous expansion of SBW coverage to different locations, and introduction of new products such as Plan 450, Sun International Services, BlackBerry Services and Mobile Internet Plans.

Non-service revenues from the wireless communications segment surged 91.5 percent as a result of higher sales of SIM packs, SBW prepaid kits and electronic load. 

Meanwhile, the wireline voice communication services contributed P2.23 billion in revenues, down 10.5 percent from the previous level of P2.49 billion as a result of lower revenues from international and domestic tolls, and local exchange.

The decline was partially offset by the growth of DSL and Suntel products which registered an increase of 14 percent over the same period last year. 

Revenues for wireline data communication services amounted to P358.9 million or a gain of 13.3 percent on the increase in domestic data and Internet services through its IP-VPN services new subscription.