MANILA, Philippines – PLDT Inc. expects a tough third quarter in terms of net earnings.
“It’s gonna be a tough third quarter. The typical story, it’s really wireless being the epicenter of the issues,” PLDT Inc. chairman and CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan told reporters on the sidelines of the Be the Boss Awards 2016.
PLDT generated P55.47 billion from wireless businesses provided by Smart Communications and Digitel Mobile Philippines Inc. (Sun Cellular), as well as wireless broadband services in the first semester. The amount was down four percent from P58.09 billion a year ago.
Pangilinan said the company also expects to see a slight erosion in the mobile subscriber base due to stiff competition.
The PLDT Group had a total of 64.47 million subscribers as of end-June, down from the 68.86 million in the same period last year.
Pangilinan said the home and enterprise business units, meanwhile, are seen to post better performance this year compared to last year.
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As of the first semester, PLDT’s consolidated core income reached P17.7 billion, down six percent from P18.9 billion last year.
The telco’s net income for the January to June period reached P12.5 billion, 33 percent lower than the P18.7 billion in the same period a year ago.
PLDT has set a core income guidance of P30 billion this year.
The company ended 2015 with core net income of P35.2 billion, in line with its guidance for the year.
PLDT, which initially set its capital expenditures to P43 billion for the year, recently hiked the amount to P48 billion to include the budget to be used to utilize the new frequencies it acquired after buying half of San Miguel Corp.’s telco assets in May.
The new frequencies are expected to help the group achieve its aim to expand the coverage of LTE (Long Term Evolution) or the fastest wireless data service commercially available, in the country.
PLDT wants to have 95 LTE percent coverage in the country by the end of 2018.
Amid changing needs of customers, the company is putting more focus on digital services over traditional businesses of voice and text messaging.
