SkyCable sees P4.5-B revenues this year

MANILA, Philippines - SkyCable Corp. said it expects higher revenues of P4.5 billion this year as it strengthens its broadband Internet offering in Metro Manila.

SkyCable marketing head Rodrigo Montinola said the growth in revenues will mainly come from its broadband offerings which now cover more than 40 percent of Metro Manila.

The country’s biggest cable television company expects revenues from broadband services to grow faster than its traditional business as cable subscription has already reached saturation especially in Metro Manila.

Broadband revenue share may reach 15 percent this year, from just 10 percent in 2010.

“Cable still comprises majority of our revenues but we want to increase the [revenue] share of broadband,” Montinola said.

Currently, SkyCable has about 500,000 cable subscribers and 35,000 broadband users. It said it expects a 10 percent growth in cable and a 100 percent increase in broadband subscriber base this year.

SkyCable introduced yesterday consumable plans that offer Internet speed of up to five megabytes per second (mbps) but impose particular data volume allocations.

At P999, users can enjoy up to 15 gigabytes (GB) of downloading which is equivalent to 3,750 songs or 25 movies. With this data allocation, subscribers can also enjoy unlimited access to social networking sites for a month. A similar five mbps plan is also available with 35 GB monthly data allocation for P1,999.

The cable provider said it decided to raise the speed bar as its internal research showed that speed is always the first consideration for regular users.

Last month, a draft circular of the National Telecommunications Commission allowing broadband Internet service providers to impose caps on the amount of data that can be downloaded.

The provision on the data cap was later removed by the regulator and the NTC is now working on a circular ordering telecom firms to simply disclose their broadband speeds.