PLDT keeps broadband leadership with 45% subscriber growth in '11

MANILA, Philippines - Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) has expanded its broadband subscriber base by 45 percent to over 2.9 million subscribers in 2011, enabling it to maintain its leadership in broadband services in the country.

PLDT President Napoleon Nazareno said the group’s broadband service revenues remained strong in 2011, posting an 18 percent growth to P18.8 billion.

“We have 70 percent of the market in terms of revenues and we intend to hold on to that share, if not grow it further this year,” Nazareno said.

For his part, PLDT executive vice president and home business head Ariel Fermin pointed out that they have an unmatched portfolio of wired and wireless broadband services that has become even more formidable this year as they launch their fiber optic cable broadband offer.

The PLDT DSL service contributed more than half to broadband service revenues with P9.5 billion earnings following an increase of almost 100,000 in its subscriber base to 742,000 as of end-2011.

Meanwhile, revenues from SmartBro amounted to P6.5 billion following a 19 percent increase in its subscribers to over 1.6 million. Of the total SmartBro subscribers, over 1.1 million were on the prepaid service. SmartBro is the wireless broadband service of PLDT subsidiary Smart Communications, offered through its wholly-owned unit Smart Broadband Inc.

Digital Telecommunications Philippines Inc. (Digitel) and its wireless brand Sun Cellular added 551,000 to the PLDT Group’s broadband subscriber base with more than P500 million in revenues in 2011.

Fermin said ongoing marketing campaigns would help boost DSL broadband sales this year. The “Anna Banana” video used in a recent PLDT commercial went viral with over one million hits on YouTube. The ad showed how the unsurpassed functionality of PLDT DSL was instrumental for the mother to show her support to her kid.

“We already know we have a great product. The key opportunity was to market it in a way that sticks, and sell it in a way that resonates. We believe that people do not buy products, they buy meanings. For this campaign, we humanized technology. We communicated our technology upgrades in a way that people understand. We want our consumers to get the message that the strongest connections are at home,” he stressed.

SmartBro also launched recently new products, including the high-speed colorful Rocket WiFi and the new plug-and-play Pocket Plug-it, to expand its reach. To support its push into the broadband business, the PLDT Group has allocated a significant portion of its P67-billion network modernization program that will be completed this year for broadband infrastructure.

This includes extending its fiber optic transmission network which now covers over 45,000 kilometers all over the country.

PLDT is also expanding the capacity of its international cable linkages and is set to launch in the next few months its third international cable landing station in Daet, Camarines Norte. This is vital given that the bulk of the country’s internet traffic goes to and from the United States and other countries.