PLDT targets three or four million new mobile adds. in 2009

Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT) is looking to add a net three to four million new mobile subscribers in 2009, well below the target set for 2008, the company’s chairman Manuel Pangilinan said last Friday as quoted by Dow Jones Newswires. ‘We still expect growth, although it will be difficult to match the additions we made in 2008,’ the PLDT man told reporters at a forum. By 31 December 2008 PLDT, through its Smart Communications and Piltel mobile units, counted a total of 35.2 million cellular users, up more than five million year-on-year. This year, Pangilinan says his company is ‘determined to improve core profit,’ and to achieve this, is hoping to see sustained pick-up in subscribers and a drop in corporate income tax to 30% from 35%.