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PHILIPPINE Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) conceded
Tuesday it now faces uncertainties and risks that it
never has experienced before.
At the
company’s annual meeting, PLDT chairman Manuel
Pangilinan said the company has to adjust to the ill
effects of rising inflation, spiraling fuel prices and
other basic commodities.
“It is
important to appreciate how colossal this oil crisis is
and its impact on PLDT,” said Pangilinan.
“We face
the rest of the year with rising inflation threatening
to reduce our revenues and increase our costs,” said
PLDT president Napoloen Nazareno.
Officials expect growth in consumption spending to
abate; remittance-led spending to likely shift toward
necessities such as food, rent and education;
private-sector investment to weaken; and government
spending on infrastructure to slow —eventually impacting
negatively on employment.
As such,
PLDT’s core net income for the year will likely grow by
only 5.1 percent to P37 billion, or slower than last
year’s 11 percent. “We are maintaining a core profit
guidance of P37 billion for 2008,” said Pangilinan. In
2007, PLDT posted P35.2 billion in core profit, up 11
percent from a year earlier.
PLDT
cellular-subscriber base as of end-May stood at 32.6
million from 30 million at end-2007. “We added 2.6
million from the start of the year until May,” said
Nazareno. Wireless subscribers of the PLDT group could
increase by 1.4 million to 1.5 million in the current
quarter, according to Pangilinan.
Meanwhile, revenues for PLDT fixed-line service rose 5
percent in the first four months of the year as PLDT
Landline Plus subscribers hit 102,000 as of end-April
from 75,000 in March this year.
The
phone giant, Pangilinan said, continues to be challenged
by new and disruptive technologies, increasing
competition, and a call for a major corporate
transformation.
But
Nazareno said the call of government to lower access
charges between two interconnecting carriers is not an
answer to the issues that PLDT faces today. He said
PLDT’s growth in past years was enabled by the company’s
continuing effort to offer to as many Filipinos as
possible low-priced, good-quality telecom services.
“We have
coupled this with the introduction of sachet-pricing to
make the service even more accessible and affordable. We
have done this in the cellular business and we are
starting to do this in the Internet business as well.
Unlike other industries such as utilities or the oil
industry, the telecom industry is one of the few that
grew by bringing the cost of service down,” he said.
While
PLDT supports the government’s objective to mitigate the
effects of inflation to its consumers, officials
stressed that focusing on reducing the telco access
charge is not the answer. Instead, PLDT said it will
offer more attractive packages to its customers with
even more affordable services.
PLDT
Group head for regulatory affairs and policy Ray
Espinosa said new pricing packages will be offered to
consumers soon in response to the clamor of the
government to lower access charges for text messages at
P0.15 and P1.50 for cellular calls. |
