ABS-CBN earnings rise 7%

MANILA, Philippines - Multimedia giant ABS-CBN Corp. is off to a good start as earnings rose seven percent in the first quarter of the year amid growing revenues offsetting the absence of non-recurring political advertisements.

ABS-CBN chief financial officer Aldrin Cerrado said the company’s net income amounted to P538 million from January to March this year or P35 million higher compared to the P503 million booked in the same period last year.

 â€œWe are off to a good start in 2014. I am particularly pleased that we were able to grow our net income by seven percent considering that last year’s results included election-related revenues,” Cerrado said.

He pointed out that the company’s revenues rose 3.4 percent to P8.2 billion in the first three months from P7.9 billion a year ago due to the strong performance of its film business, global distribution, and pay-TV networks.

Consumer sales jumped 18.2 percent to P4.2 billion in the first quarter from P3.56 billion in the same period last year while ad revenues slipped 8.9 percent to P3.98 billion from P4.37 billion. 

The share of consumer sales to total revenues increased to 51 percent from 45 percent while the share ad revenues declined to 49 percent from 55 percent.

Without the non-recurring items including political advertisements, total revenues would have gone up by 7.8 percent to P8.19 billion from P7.6 billion.

The company’s revenues from global operations jumped 22.1 to P1.51 billion in the first quarter boosted by the international release of Star Cinema movies and the success of events such as ASAP Dubai.

Revenues of the broadcast business inched up by 0.6 percent to P4.18 billion while revenues from film and music jumped 25.2 percent to P660 million.

Likewise, revenues of SkyCable Corp. grew 8.3 percent to P1.84 billion from P1.7 billion with the cable business growing five percent and its broadband business jumping 29 percent.

 â€œABS-CBN is the clear leader in terms of national audience share, and we continue to capture a relatively large chunk of total advertising expenditure in the country,” he added.