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PILIPINO Telephone Corp. (Piltel) on Tuesday said it remains
cautious over the company’s outlook this year owing to higher
inflation.
On the sidelines of the company’s
stockholders’ meeting, Napoleon Nazareno, Piltel president said
there are many challenges affecting the industry.
”The serious challenge really is the
inflation. It really depends on the inflation whether there will be
an effect on our revenue,” he said.
Last month, the country’s inflation rate rose
to 8.3 percent, the highest since May 2005 driven primarily by high
food and oil prices.
Nazareno said that in the first four months the
company saw no negative impact in terms of subscribers’ purchasing
power.
”I feel, while it would be affected if this is
prolonged and becomes protracted. Initially we are not feeling yet
at this point. In June or July, we might revisit our target again
and see if there’s been an impact,” he said.
The executive said Piltel is on track in meeting
its double-digit revenue growth this year.
”We will continue to make Piltel as robust as
it can be. We will continue to be very aggressive in supporting the
brand Talk ‘N Text,” he said.
The company projected its core net income
between P8.5 billion and P9.5 billion this year from last year’s
P8.5 billion.
Piltel’s first-quarter net income rose to
P2.46 billion, a 24-percent increase compared with P1.99 billion in
the same three-month period last year.
Revenues grew 17 percent to P4.20 billion,
compared with P3.57 billion last year, as a result of the
substantial growth of the Talk ‘N Text subscriber base.
At end-March, Talk ‘N Text added about 1.25
million subscribers to 11 million, while parent Smart Communications
Inc. had net additions of 280,000 subscribers for a subscriber base
of 20.6 million.
-- Darwin G. Amojelar
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