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THE country’s two largest telecommunication companies on Tuesday
said that first-quarter profits rose by double-digits, even as
operating earnings were hurt by rising prices.
Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT)
and Globe Telecom Inc. announced first-quarter results on the same
day the government said inflation hit a three-year high last month.
In a briefing, Napoleon Naza-reno, PLDT
president and chief executive officer, said the company’s net
income in the first three months of the year grew 21 percent to
P10.4 billion from the P8.6 billion in the same period last year.
Excluding foreign exchange gains or losses and
other non-recurring income, the country’s biggest telco turned in
profits of P9.3 billion, an increase of 11 percent from the P8.4
billion last year.
In a statement, Globe said its net income hit
P3.4 billion, 32 percent higher than last year’s P2.6 billion.
This year’s results included one-time charges of P1.3 billion for
the early redemption of debt.
Excluding non-recurring items, the telco’s
core net income was down 4 percent to P3.5 billion.
For its part, Globe said consolidated service
revenues stood at P15.5 billion, at par with last year’s level
despite a more difficult macroeconomic environment in the first
quarter this year.
The Ayala-led telco said rising food and fuel
prices, and the impact of a strong peso on the spending power of
overseas Filipino workers’ (OFW) dependents have dampened demand
for the company’s services.
Globe’s SIM (subscriber identification module)
base expanded 26 percent year on year to close the quarter at 21.3
million. Gross additions grew 30 percent from last year while net
additions closed at just under the one million mark, sustaining the
million or more net additions the company has achieved over the past
five quarters.
PLDT, partly owned by Hong Kong’s First
Pacific Co. Ltd. and Japan’s NTT group, said consolidated service
revenues were up 6 percent year-on year to P34.9 billion.
Wireless service revenues rose to P22.5 billion
for the first three months, an 8-percent increase, largely due to
subsidiaries Smart Communications Inc. and Pilipino Telephone Corp.
(Piltel).
Piltel posted a net income of P2.46 billion at
end-March, a 24- percent increase from the P1.99 billion in the same
three-month period last year.
Its revenues grew 17 percent to P4.20 billion as
a result of the substantial growth of the Talk ‘N Text subscriber
base.
The PLDT group cornered about 57 percent of the
mobile phone service market, recording 31.6 million subscribers.
Smart registered net additions of about 280,000 subscribers and Talk
‘N Text another 1.25 million subscribers to end the period with
20.6 million and 11 million subscribers, respectively.
At end-April, the group’s cellular subscriber
base had surpassed the 32 million mark.
Smart’s wireless broadband revenues surged 122
percent to about P919 million, an improvement over the P414 million
for the same period in 2007. Wireless broadband service subscribers
increased 14 percent for the quarter to reach 348,000, adding 46,000
new subscribers.
“The Internet is the new cellular and just as
we have put the mobile phone in most people’s hands, so will we
make the Internet accessible to all”, Orlando Vea, Smart’s chief
wireless adviser said.
Its fixed-line service revenues increased 4
percent to P12.4 billion from P11.9 billion last year as
improvements in data revenues, both from corporate data and
residential digital subscribers line services, were augmented by
higher revenues in the local exchange and national long distance
businesses.
ePLDT, the group’s information and
communications technology arm, reported service revenues of P2.6
billion for the first quarter, a 6-percent increase from the P2.4
billion recorded in the same period last year.
Despite significant growth, ePLDT’s revenues
were adversely impacted by the strong appreciation of the peso since
approximately 80 of its service revenues are denominated in dollars.
-- Darwin G. Amojelar
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