PLDT bucks global downtrend in fixed line service

MANILA, Philippines - Dominant carrier Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) continued to defy the slump in the global telecommunication fixed line services after booking double-digit gains in data and broadband revenues for its fixed line business in the first half of the year.

“Our fixed line business continues to deliver a strong performance, defying global trends, as business and revenues from our retail and corporate customers continue to grow at a steady pace,” PLDT president Napoleon Nazareno said.

PLDT recorded a six percent increase in revenues for its fixed line service to P28.1 billion in the first half of the year on the back of a double-digit growth in data revenues that accounted for 53 percent of the total fixed line service revenues.

On the other hand, fixed broadband earnings that accounted for 46 percent of total fixed line data revenues jumped 14 percent to nearly P6.8 billion amid the 11 percent growth in subscribers.

As of June this year, over 47 percent of PLDT’s 2.2 million fixed line subscribers have fixed broadband subscriptions.

Data center revenues surged 18 percent to hit the P1 billion mark as income from corporate data and other network services increased by seven percent to P7 billion.

Nazareno said the strong growth of PLDT’s data services helped offset the revenue declines from legacy businesses such as international and long distance.

“The ongoing structural shift in our revenue mix continues to impact our performance. Our growing revenues, or those from our data businesses, are now larger than those from our legacy businesses,” he said.

PLDT has earmarked as much as P32 billion or 20 percent of projected service revenues for its capital expenditures this year from P29 billion or 18 percent of total revenues last year.

This year’s budget for capital expenditures covers the widening of its fiber footprint to at least 90,000 kilometers and at the same time increase 3G population coverage to about 92 percent nationwide.

Nazareno added that the construction of two more data centers worth P3 billion would triple the combined capacity of its five data centers to 6,600 racks from 2,262 racks by the end of 2015.

This would give the PLDT Group a solid portfolio of Cloud-based services for the expanding corporates, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and business process outsourcing companies (BPOs).