PLDT unit sees higher revenues from SME market

MANILA, Philippines - A unit of dominant carrier Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) expects to sustain a double-digit growth in revenues this year as it focuses on the 800,000 strong small and medium enterprise (SME) market segment.

PLDT first vice president Kat Luna-Abelarde said in an interview with reporters that PLDT SME Nation sees revenues hitting P10 billion this year or 11.1 percent higher compared to P9 billion last year.

“In terms of revenue, we expects around P10 billion. We grow by double digits and we expect a very healthy growth rate actually,” she said.

Abelarde, head of the SME Business of PLDT, said the company’s strategy is about empowering SME’s that account for 99 percent of total number of companies in the country.

PLDT SME Nation has partnered with Samsung and Microsoft Philippines to create innovative business solutions to enable entrepreneurs to run their business better, grow faster, be more globally competitive and engage with the country’s digital, social, and mobile population.

“PLDT SME Nation reaffirms its support for Filipino SMEs as it continues to innovate and form partnerships with industry leaders to provide our country’s aspiring entrepreneurs with only the best broadband solutions for their businesses,” Abelarde said.

PLDT SME Nation, Samsung, and Microsoft agreed to create and introduce groundbreaking technologies and tools to enable SMEs to efficiently manage their businesses anytime, anywhere.

PLDT executive vice president Eric Alberto said the collaboration and synergy among today’s leaders in the telecommunications industry ushers in a new era of enablement for the SME market segment.

“Through this strategic partnership, SMEs will have access to game-changing business tools such as faster and nationwide fixed and wireless broadband solutions, latest gadgets and devices and relevant collaboration cloud applications which should ultimately lead to higher levels of operational efficiencies, expanded market reach, higher profit margin levels, and in the process create higher economic multiplier for our country” Alberto said.

With the partnership, SMEs could now enjoy the benefits of having PLDT SME Nation’s premium and faster fixed and wireless broadband solutions running on our latest fiber and LTE network.

These broadband offerings provide unlimited access which give entrepreneurs the ability to continuously conduct online activities without the fear of bandwidth throttling.

The services also feature committed information rates that guarantee minimum bandwidth speeds for businesses and a static IP used to power up websites and enable faster inter-office data transfers.

PLDT SME Nation boasts of its most robust network and nation-widest reach for its fixed, wireless and now satellite service, ensuring that entrepreneurs would have the best broadband service suited for their business wherever they are.

Likewise, the new broadband packages come with supercharged flexible freebies ranging from relevant and business enabling Cloud Solutions such as Microsoft Office 365 and PLDT Cloud apps for video monitoring, asset tracking, POS, infrastructure and more.

SMEs would also be able to get for free and choose the latest array of smart devices from Samsung Philippines and High Definition (HD) TV content from Cignal.

The Philippines’ fast-growing digital, social and mobile users definitely creates unprecedented opportunities for However, the challenge today is how SMEs can efficiently tap and engage this community. Today, there are over 34 million Facebook users, over 10 million Twitter followers and with over 44 million Filipino Internet users and counting.