PLDT sees Cignal rise to No 1

MANILA, Philippines - Dominant carrier Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) is confident that it would dominate the pay-TV industry by the fourth quarter of the year as it strengthens the company’s multi-media initiatives.

PLDT chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan said Cignal Digital TV is currently the largest single brand pay-TV service and number one in terms of digital service in the country with approximately 705,000 subscribers as of end-April.

“I think it will be the number one pay TV service overall by the fourth quarter this year because it is growing by leaps and bounds,” Pangilinan said.

He likened the growth of the digital pay-TV business to the strong growth experienced by the cellular phone market compared to the fixed line over the past few years.

“It is the similar story between the growth of cellular many years ago versus the growth of fixed line. It is so much easier to connect on a wireless delivered system and at the same time Cignal has a national footprint,” he added.

The subscriber base of direct-to-home Cignal TV jumped 36.5 percent to 602,000 last year from 441,000 in 2012. Of the total subscriber base about 68 percent are prepaid subscribers with plans ranging between P290 per month to P430 per month while 32 percent are postpaid subscribers with plans ranging between P430 and P1,590.

As of end-December, Cignal TV had 104 channels including 13 free-to air as well as are standard definition channels and 25 high definition channels.

Through the PLDT triple-play, subscribers enjoy a dedicated connection PLDT Fibr for the fiber-to-the-home, landline through Telpad, and Cignal TV. Cignal provides the TV portion while PLDT as access provider would supply landline and high-speed broadband of up to 100 megabytes per second (Mbps).

PLDT has also tied up with Clickplay allowing customers to watch videos-on-demand from over 200 blockbuster movies from distributor like Sony Pictures and Warner Brothers as well as 250 TV series and Anime through MyPinoy TV.

Likewise, Home e-Portal is now available to DSL subscribers allowing access to movies through Clickplay, TV series through MyPinoy TV, music through Spinnr, games via EA Games, livesports such as Philippine Basketball Association/ Olympics/ Superbowl, and exclusive content.