Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT), the country’s biggest telecoms operator by subscribers and revenue, posted net profits of PHP35.5 billion (USD873.6 million) in full year 2012, up 12% from PHP31.7 billion in 2011, as net income rose six-fold in 4Q12 to PHP6.7 billion. In a filing with the Philippine Stock Exchange, the carrier attributed part of the rise in profitability to higher revenue from its mobile operations, including gains from Digital Telecommunications Philippines Inc (Digitel/Sun Cellular), helping push consolidated turnover up 10% year-on-year to PHP169.3 billion. Further, PLDT noted that fixed line and broadband revenue also performed strongly, increasing by 4% and 26% respectively last year. Core net income in FY 2012, which strips out foreign exchange gains and derivatives losses, fell 4% y-o-y to PHP37.3 billion, due to ‘higher operating expenses relating mainly to manpower reduction programmes’ and other promotional activities, the company said.
Commenting on the results Napoleon Nazareno, president and CEO of PLDT, said: ‘Our financials reflect full-year results of Digitel for the first time, as well as our successful navigation of the various challenges we faced during the year – the intense competition in the wireless space, the integration of Digitel and Sun operations into the group, the continued push for the growth of broadband, the completion of our network transformation, the rationalisation of our business portfolio leading to the sale of our BPO businesses, and the beginning of our involvement in the media space.’
Operationally speaking, PLDT closed out 2012 with a total of 69.9 million cellular subscribers, including 53.4 million for Smart Communications (and Talk N’ Text) and 15.7 million for Sun Cellular. The group’s broadband base meanwhile climbed a net 335,000 connections last year for a total of 3.262 million.