Manuel V. Pangilinan is retiring as president and CEO of PLDT Inc. He will be replaced by chief revenue officer Alfredo S. Panlilio.
Pangilinan, who is turning 75 this year, will remain as the group’s chairman, subject to the approval of the shareholders.
“I think, in the annual shareholders of PLDT this year is scheduled next month, I will retire as president and CEO of PLDT and pass the baton over to Al so I will stay as chairman, of course subject to shareholders’ consent to do that,” he said during the first quarter results briefing of the company.
Pangilinan first floated the idea of stepping down as president and CEO in 2019. He said back then that his metric for handing over the post is for the company to achieve steady growth and stability.
PLDT Inc. booked a telco core income of P7.5 billion in the first quarter of 2021, a 9-percent improvement from the P6.9 billion registered the year prior.
This, as service revenues grew by 8 percent to P44.8 billion from P41.5 billion, mainly driven by its wireless business.
In terms of verticals, its individual consumer business booked a 7-percent increase to P22.1 billion, while its home business rose by 19 percent to P10.9 billion.
The enterprise vertical also grew by 4 percent to P10.3 billion, while its international business declined by 7 percent to P1.5 billion.
Pangilinan described these results as “pretty good,” noting that this performance was close to how the company performed in the fourth quarter of 2020, which was generally the most profitable quarter for PLDT.
“We’re on target of our telco core income for the year of P29 billion to P30 billion—most likely we will achieve the higher end of that telco core income target. Revenues are looking good for April and the first week of May. Revenues for the second quarter will likely be similar if not higher than the revenues in the first quarter,” he said.
The company is spending between P88 billion and P92 billion in capital expenditures this year, as it continues to build its mobile and fixed line networks.
The capital expenditures for 2021 include the deployment of 3,800 5G base stations, 4,000 4G base stations, 1.7 million fiber to the home ports, and 125,000 kilometers of fiber optic cables.