PLDT Inc. sees its home broadband and enterprise business segments to drive growth in the next two to three years as the mobile business’ growth softens due to the mobility restrictions and the stiff competition in the market.
“In the coming two to three years, home (business) will be as a major revenue driver, growth driver for PLDT and the other growth driver is enterprise business. The most affected sector is really the wireless, impacted because of the economic conditions of the pandemic and increase in competition,” Manuel Pangilinan, PLDT chairman, said in a virtual press briefing yesterday.
In the first nine months, PLDT’s consolidated service revenue rose 7 percent to P135.9 billion, from P126.6 billion in the same period last year.
Total home business revenue grew 25 percent to P35.3 billion in the nine-month period, boosted by the record revenue increase in the third quarter, up 29 percent to P12.6 billion, PLDT said.
“We’re seeing growth…for both home and enterprise. Wireless is of course 48 percent of our revenues. It’s a very challenging segment at this point for us, back to basic looking at retention and ARPUs (average revenue per user), that’s our focus,” said Alfredo Panlilio, PLDT and Smart Communications Inc. president and chief executive officer.
PLDT’s wireless revenues dropped 3 percent in the third quarter this year as compared to last year.
“We are in the dominant position both in home and enterprise and we continue to ride on that position. For home, as we said, we have huge unserved demand for home and we continue to be there in two to three years. We see home to still have big growth next year,” Panlilio said on his outlook for next year.
For the enterprise business, Panlilio said: “We are very bullish on IoT (Internet of Things) on the cloud and solution and also hyperscaler business is very significant for us.”
PLDT is investing P5 billion for the construction of its 11th data center in the next two to three years that will support the growing demand of the enterprise business, said Anabelle Chua, PLDT chief financial officer.
PLDT said it remains on track to reach its telco core income guidance of P30 billion for this year.
Telco core income, excluding the impact of asset sales and Voyager Innovations, climbed 10 percent year-on-year to P23.1 billion in the first nine months of 2021, helped by lower tax rates.
However, the company’s reported net income declined by 4 percent to P18.8 billion, after taking into account revaluation losses due to the peso’s depreciation this year.
PLDT is also optimistic in the growth potential of PayMaya Philippines as it is set to launch the digital bank service in the first quarter.
Maya Bank is a soon-to-be-launched digital bank authorized by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. With PayMaya, Maya Bank will promote a seamless digital banking experience among customers through its strong affiliation with PLDT and Smart.
As of September this year, PLDT and Smart have a total subscriber base of 77.8 million, of which 70.6 million are from the wireless business, 3.8 million in broadband and 3.4 million are fixed line subscribers.
