PLDT now back on the growth track

CEBU, Philippines - At the PLDT Stockholders Meeting held on June 14 at  the Shangri-La Hotel in Makati City, company president Napoleon Nazareno said 2013 is the year when the telco giant “returns to growth.”

“Our first five months’ preliminary results are already pointing in this direction. Our acquisition of Digitel and the network transformation program had a dampening effect on our 2012 financials.  However, these investments, combined with our multi-media strategy, should now put your company back on the growth path and in the best position to profit from the far-reaching changes that are happening in the converging worlds of telecoms, the Internet and media,” Nazareno told the telco’s shareholders.

With the completion of its P67 billion network transformation program last year which has resulted in an unparalleled network with the capability and capacity to deliver quality service, PLDT is poised to cash in on its high-speed broadband offerings not only in the traditional fixed and mobile business, but more importantly in data which is the sunrise business of today and of the future.

At the end of 2012, broadband revenues for the group amounted to P23.7 billion, representing 15% of total group service revenues.

The surprising growth in mobile Internet, which buoyed PLDT’s profits in the first five months of this year, is expected to continue as the company is looking at developing more Philippine-based web content to encourage more subscribers to use its data service.

PLDT Chairman Manny V. Pangilinan said that PLDT, as market leader, has 75.3 million subscribers and of this number, only 2 million are using internet messaging using their smartphones.

Yet the mobile internet revenues for PLDT subsidiary Smart Communications, Inc. grew 50 percent compared to the previous year.

“Naturally, that’s an area of particular attention to us,” Pangilinan told journalists during the press conference that followed the stockholders meeting.

PLDT is also very optimistic to grow its revenues on  the potential of the pay TV industry in the Philippines. The company is confident its CignalTV’s competitive advantages can give it a strong position in the market.

CignalTV has already signed up half a million subscribers for a 30 percent market share. Its channel count stood at 87, of which 65 are standard definition (SD) and 22 are high definition (HD). 

CignalTV is expected to be EBITDA positive in the second half of 2013.  “We are now working on making Cignal TV content available to customers of our fiber-to-the home offering.  Moving forward, there will be more and more opportunity to bundle content with our cellular and fixed line business offerings,” Nazareno said. (FREEMAN)