DAVAO CITY—The enterprise and home businesses of PLDT Inc. are seen to persist in a growth path in 2017 at a rate that will likely make their contribution to the revenues of the group on a par with its largest business segment, mobile.
Eric R. Alberto, who sits as chief revenue officer at PLDT, is confident the two business segments will “significantly” drive the revenues of the company this year, as adoption of technology by enterprises and consumers increase continuously.
“Our revenues will be driven by enterprise and home in 2017—and perhaps in the next couple of years—considering wireless has suffered to a large extent to massive competition and price erosion,” he said in an interview here on Monday.
Together, the two business segments are roughly P60 billion in valuation as of end-December 2016.
“We are targeting double-digit growth for 2017, so that’s about P7 billion to P10 billion, depending on the market conditions and the pace of adoption,” Alberto said.
Adoption refers to acquisition of new customers, both in the consumer side and the enterprise side.
ePLDT Inc. COO Nerissa Ramos said she is confident her group will attract more enterprise customers this year, given their perceived “readiness” to adopt the principle of outsourcing.
Just recently the company launched its first data center in Davao, a facility that offers hosting, collocation and business-continuity services for enterprises in Mindanao.
“I’m confident about the readiness of the local market to adopt the principle of outsourcing,” she said. “We hope our data center will be fully utilized soon.”
Another data center—the ninth of the group—will be opened in Clark this week. Toward the end of 2017, another one will be opened in Cebu.
On the consumer side, the group is stepping up its efforts to attract more customers to get a broadband plan.
PLDT Home’s fiber network covered 2.5 million homes last year. For 2017 it aims to reach 4.4 million homes, amid the expansion of its fiber network.
Combined, the two business segments accounted for almost half of the total revenues of PLDT in 2016, he said.
The company has yet to release its financial statement for 2016.
“For this year, their total contribution should be about half, more or less,” Alberto said.
While it is hard to say whether the two business segments will outpace wireless in the short term, Alberto said, they will be “as prominent as wireless”.
“In the medium and long term, there might be a resurgence of mobile,” he said. “With the rapid rise of affordable devices, there will be an explosion of data use.”
