ABS-CBN net profit drops 23% to P2.24B in Jan-Sept

MANILA, Philippines - ABS-CBN Corp. suffered a 23-percent drop in its net income to P2.24 billion during the first nine months of 2011 from P2.9 billion in the same period last year.

This as the company said consolidated gross revenues declined 15 percent to P21.1 billion during the period. Of the total revenues, those from advertising accounted for 63 percent and those from consumer sales, 37 percent.

Ad revenues reached P13.4 billion, a 21-percent decline from year-ago levels due to a slowdown in ad spend by corporates. Minus the revenues from political ads and advocacies in 2010, ad revenues declined only by four percent.

Meanwhile, consumer sales amounted to P7.8 billion, a one-percent drop.

ABS-CBN Global revenues went down 11 percent year-on-year due to a decline in subscribers and the appreciation of the peso against the dollar.

SkyCable posted a 10-percent increase in revenues to P3.2 billion, driven mostly by the increased take-up of its broadband service subscriptions by 21 percent year-on-year.

ABS-CBN chief finance officer Rolando Valdueza said that for this month, they are seeing some signs of recovery in terms of airtime sales and that given the trend now, they are looking at between P2.4 billion to P2.6 billion in net income.

“Next year, the thrust is for us to focus on improving the afternoon slot to give us better ratings. We are upbeat for next year. Consumer sales will be a bigger component,” he said.

Valdueza noted that there will definitely be some major improvements vis-a-vis performance this year. “Most of the investments is to pursue our growth initiatives in as far as consumer sales is concerned. We will also continue to expand the coverage of Sky Cable,” he said.

As for capital expenditure, ABS-CBN is spending P5 billion this year and around P6 billion next year. Of the 2012 capex, around P2 billion will be for subsidiary SkyCable.