PLDT expects better Q2 earnings

MANILA, Philippines - Dominant carrier Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) sees better earnings in the second quarter of the year fuelled by the company’s data and broadband businesses as well as fixed line segment.

PLDT chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan said in an interview with reporters after the company’s 2014 Annual Stockholders’ Meeting that the country’s largest telecom company expects higher profits in the second quarter compared to the same period last year.

“It will be better than last year,” Pangilinan said.

PLDT recorded a P10.54-billion net income in the second quarter of 2013 on the back of revenues amounting to P42.14 billion.

Pangilinan said the growth of company’s profits from April to June is being fuelled by data and broadband as well as the company’s fixed line business.

“Typical thing data and broadband but I think the fixed line business has been doing very well actually during the past year and the first quarter of the year,” he said.

Furthermore, he said the decline in the company’s international and domestic long distance businesses is “norrower and less steep.”

PLDT’s net income climbed two percent to P9.38 billion in the first quarter of the year from P9.18 billion in the same quarter last year as revenues rose four percent to P42.54 billion from P40.96 billion.

Pangilinan said PLDT is looking at a two percent rise in core net income to P39.5 billion this year from P38.7 billion last year.

PLDT president Napoleon Nazareno told the company’s stockholders that the momentum in profitability last year is expected to be sustained this year.

“For 2014, we expect to sustain this momentum in profitability and anticipate core income to rise further by two percent to P39.5 billion,” Nazareno said.

He said the company’s net income dipped two percent to P35.4 billion last year reflecting the combined impact of foreign exchange and derivative losses, losses from Super Typhoon Yolanda, and higher manpower rightsizing program expenses.

Nazareno explained that PLDT operated in a challenging competitive environment in the last two years while it was undertaking important internal changes involving the integration of Digital Telecommunications of the Philippines Inc. and Sun Cellular into the PLDT Group as well as the massive network transformation program.