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MANILA,
Nov. 5 (PNA) – Philippine Long Distance Company (PLDT) posted core
income of Php27.8 billion in the first nine months of 2008, five
percent higher than the income of Php26.4 billion in the same period in
2007.
Consolidated
net profit of Php26.2 billion decreased two percent from the Php26.6
billion net profit for the period under review.
Dollar-linked
revenues account for as much as 28 percent of consolidated revenues
while earnings before interest, tax depreciation and amortization
(EBITDA) improved by six percent to Php65.6 billion and EBITDA margin
was stable at 62 percent.
The
group’s (PLDT, Wireless, PLDT Fixed Line, ePLDT) gross debt balance as
of September 30, 2008 stood at US$ 1.5 billion with net debt at US$ 900
million.
The
Wireless revenues rose to Php68.8 billion for the period under review,
seven percent higher than the Php64.1 billion realized in 2007.
Manuel
V. Pangilinan, chairman of PLDT, said “Despite all the destructive
forces around us, our performance has been consistent and solid.
Accordingly, we affirm our core profit guidance of Php37 billion for
the year 2008.”
”The
Philippines seem to have seen slightly insulated from this meltdown so
far, perhaps because we have learned our lessons from the Asian crisis
in 1997, but also because the exogenous or foreign elements in our
national balance sheet are not substantial,” Pangilinan said.
On
the other hand, Napoleon L. Nazareno, president and CEO of PLDT and
Smart, said, “While the third quarter is seasonally a slow one for us,
we are beginning to see the effect of inflation on activations and
usage. Nonetheless, our core businesses continue to grow, demonstrating
the underlying strength of our business and the wisdom of our
strategy.”
Smart
Communications, Inc. recorded net additions of 547,000 subscribers and
Pilipino Telephone Corp. (Piltel) Talk ‘N Text added about 3.6 million
subscribers to end the period with 20.9 million and 13.3 million
subscribers, respectively, or a total of 34.2 million subscribers.
PLDT
Fixed Line service revenues increased two percent to Php36.7 billion in
2008 from Php35.8 billion in 2007 as improvements in data revenues,
both from corporate data and residential DSL services, were offset by
declines in other segments of the business.
Revenues
in Local Exchange and National Long Distance were each down two percent
while International Long Distance revenues continued to decline as the
dollar-linked sales were adversely impacted by the six percent
appreciation of the average US dollar/peso exchange rate in 2008, as
well as reductions in termination rates and call volumes.
ePLDT,
the groups information and communications technology arm, posted
revenues of Php7.6 billion, two percent increase from the Php7.4
billion recorded in 2007.
ePLDT’s
EBITDA fell to Php671 million in 2008 as compared with Php821 million
in 2007. EBITDA margin declined correspondingly to nine percent
compared with 11 percent in 2007.
Call
Center revenues grew six percent to Php2.5 billion despite the
appreciation of the peso. ePLDT Ventus, the umbrella brand for ePLDT’s
customer interactive business, now operates seven customer interaction
service facilities with combined seats of close to 6,500 and an
employee base of close to 7,000.
”We
continue to manage the challenges faced by some of our verticals. We
have a number of new contracts in our pipeline which should support an
improvement in our margins in the coming quarters,” said Ray C.
Espinosa, ePLDT president and CEO. (PNA) |
