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By Darwin G. Amojelar, Reporter
ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. on Thursday said it
expects to sustain a billion-peso profit this year amid weaker
advertising revenue caused by soaring inflation and a slump in the
domestic economy.
The government earlier reported that inflation
surged to a nine-year high of 9.6 percent last month, whereas the
economy, as measured by the country’s gross domestic product grew
at a slower 5.2 percent in the first quarter.
During the company’s stockholders’ meeting,
Ma. Rosario Santos-Concio, ABS-CBN president and chief operating
officer, reported its net income for the first five months rose 13
percent to P598 million from P528 million in the same period last
year.
Santos-Concio attributed the improvement to
higher airtime revenue and global operations.
She said the company’s consolidated airtime
revenue inched up 3 percent to P5.2 billion from last year, adding
this was 9 percent higher after excluding nonrecurring political
advertising revenues of P298 million last year.
“This means that not only did we manage to
replace nonrecurring income, we also grew airtime revenue further,
as our ad minutes increased by 13 percent in the five month period.
It is higher than the industry and that of our closest
competitor,” Santos-Concio said.
Rolando Valdueza, ABS-CBN chief financial
officer, said the P1.27-billion net income last year will likely be
sustained this year.
“We’re almost at P600 million in just five
months. Last year we hit P1.2 billion for the entire year. So, you
can gauge it from that. We will likely sustain growth,” he said.
Eugenio Lopez 3rd, ABS-CBN chairman, told
reporters the company expects to have a “good” year for as long
as the economy does not slow down.
“We’re hoping. [But] it depends [on] whether
the economy falls into deep recession. We’re hoping that it could
be shallow. Anyway, the remittance[s] continue to grow. We’re
hoping that consumer consumption will not drop significantly. It
looks like a shallow recession or softening of the economy. If the
economy grew 5.5 percent, I think we are positioned to have a good
year,” he said.
Owing to higher inflation and the economic
slowdown, the advertising industry as a whole will remain flat this
year, Lopez said.
“I think there is a softening in June. The
total ad minutes have gone down already. We are experiencing
slowdown. We are hoping [for] a flat [growth],” he added.
To sustain the profit recorded last year, the
company is reducing production costs by putting a cap on the number
of people per production unit and streamlining engineering, the
company executive said.
“This year we expect the numbers on our
production to be either flat or negative. This should be the first
year ever to be flat. We are very focused on cutting our costs,”
he said.
He said the company will spend P1 billion to
roll out its digital TV this year. “We [are] ready to move into
digital TV once the NTC issue the circular,” he said, referring to
the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), which has yet to
issue the rules governing this new platform.
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