PLDT unit sees resd’l wired biz subscribers hitting 1-M mark

MANILA, Philippines - A unit of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) is confident of hitting one million subscribers for its residential wired business within the year.

Ariel Fermin, executive vice president and head of Home Business, said the company continued to register impressive subscriber growth for the PLDT Home DSL and PLDT Home Telpad.

“The consistent subscriber growth reinforces PLDT’s leadership in the landline business with 70 percent market share, more than three times bigger than its nearest competitor,” Fermin said.

He pointed out that PLDT Home DSL is expected to end the year adding 200,000 new subscribers, bringing the base to more than one million amid the company’s extensive facility rollout and relentless efforts to provide compelling multimedia content.

He added that PLDT Home Telpad has managed to double its subscriber base by connecting an estimated 200,000 homes as of end-November.

 “Our growing subscriber base is a testament to customer trust in the quality of our products, and to the success of the PLDT Group’s integrated approach to multimedia, data and voice services. It’s an inspiration and a challenge for us as more Filipino families embrace this highly competitive and exciting age of digital connections and communication,” Fermin said.

He said the PLDT Group would continue to invest heavily to improve and expand its infrastructure to reach more homes.

 “We also recognize the value of compelling content in the growth equation, which is why we continuously enhance our portfolio of multimedia offerings for music, games, sports and TV shows,” Fermin added.

PLDT president Napoleon Nazareno earlier announced that the PLDT Group has decided to increase its capital expenditures budget to P34.5 billion instead of P32 billion this year to enhance its 3G coverage in all cities and 92 percent of all municipalities; widen fiber optic cable network to 90,000 kilometers; fortify the northern and southern Luzon aerial fiber optic cable; expand its 4G network footprint; expand its fixed and mobile broadband packet core network; and roll-out fiber-to-the-home infrastructure.

 “We expect higher capex levels for 2014, to be carried over into 2015 in light of the market’s continued appetite for data services. While we have already modernized and expanded our networks, we are accelerating our data capacity build-out due to the free Internet promo as well as our TD-LTE build-out to meet increasing fixed wireless data demand,” Nazareno said.

The PLDT Group also earlier slashed its profit guidance this year amid the intense competition as well as the changing revenue-mix in the telecommunications industry.

PLDT chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan earlier said the company revised downwards by four percent its full-year profit guidance to P37 billion from P39.5 billion as competition is expected to “remain keen in the fourth quarter of the year, and possibly beyond 2014 as well.”

The revised profit guidance this year would be four percent lower compared to the P37-billion core net income booked in 2013.

PLDT’s core net income slipped one percent to P28.6 million in the first nine months of the year from P28.8 billion in the same period last year while  reported net income likewise declined by three percent to P28 billion from P29 billion.

On the other hand, PLDT’s consolidated service revenues inched up one percent to P122.9 billion from January to September this year compared to P121.6 billion in the same period last year.

The PLDT Group had a subscriber base of 75 million as of end-September comprising of 69 million wireless subscribers as well as 3.7 million broadband subscribers and 2.2 million fixed line subscribers.

Wireless giant Smart Communications Inc. had 25.7 million subscribers as of end-September while Talk ‘N Text had 27.8 million, and Sun Cellular with 15.5 million.