PLDT Inc. Chairman and CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan on May 10 said the information and communications technology (ICT) juggernaut needs to exert more effort to regain its lofty standing in the market.
“We can do better. The competition has a slight edge in wireless. We always felt that our overarching goal is to restore PLDT be the leader in wireless. We will not stop until we get to the top,” Pangilinan said in the news briefing during the announcement of its 2018 first-quarter results. PLDT reported its net income rose 41 percent to P7 billion. This reflects the impact of the P3.4-billion revaluation gain on their Rocket Internet investment recognized at the end of the quarter; and the noncore accelerated depreciation expense of P2.4 billion arising from the shortened useful life of network assets in connection with the company’s aggressive network modernization.
In May Rocket Internet bought back PLDT Online’s 6.8 million shares at €24/share—a total of €163.2 million or P10.5 billion. PLDT gained an estimated P1.4 billion in the transaction that will be booked in the second quarter. PLDT Online continues to hold 3.3 million shares of Rocket Internet.
Ernesto R. Alberto, PLDT and Smart executive vice president and chief revenue officer, reported that data and broadband revenues accounted for 64 percent, 61 percent and 44 percent of the Home, Enterprise and Individual Wireless business groups, respectively. He added mobile Internet revenues jumped 29 percent to P5.9 billion. Home broadband revenues rose 18 percent to P5.6 billion, while corporate data and data center revenues grew by 6 percent to P5.2 billion.
“Given these developments, we maintain our guidance that full-year recurring core income for 2018 excluding Voyager will reach P23 [billion to] P24 billion and that our capex will increase to P58 billion this year,” Pangilinan said.