PLDT net income up 44% in ‘breakout year’
Credit to Author: The Manila Times| Date: Thu, 07 Mar 2019 16:17:27 +0000
PLDT Inc. on Thursday declared 2018 a “breakout year” as its main revenue streams posted robust growth.
Pro-forma core net income hit P26.2 billion last year, up 5 percent from 2017, while reported net income surged 44 percent to P19.2 billion from P13.4 billion.
Under a new accounting standard adopted for 2018, core net income was 7 percent higher at P25.9 billion while reported net income ballooned by 41 percent to P18.9 billion, the firm said in a press release.
To allow for “apples-to-apples comparison”, figures used in the statement were derived from the previous Philippine Accounting Standard 18 instead of the now mandatory Philippine Financial Reporting Standard 15, the telco explained.
“2018 was a breakthrough year for PLDT with all of its main revenue businesses — Home, Enterprise, and Consumer Wireless businesses — firing, each registering robust topline growth,” the telco said.
Consolidated service revenues rose 5 percent to P149 billion, not including P1.1 billion from unit Voyager Innovations, while combined revenues from main businesses grew by 9 percent to P137.4 billion.
“This marks the return of growth in overall service revenues last recorded in 2014,” PLDT said.
Company Chairman, President and CEO Manuel “Manny” Pangilinan, in the statement, said that “after persistent efforts over the past three years to execute our digital pivot, we have returned our Wireless Consumer business firmly on the growth path in 2018, alongside our Home and Enterprise business which have been consistently posting healthy growth rates.”
“With all cylinders of our revenue engine now firing, we are positioned to throttle into high gear and do better in 2019,” he added.
PLDT announced that it was allocating another “historic” capex of P78.4 billion for this year, P20 billion higher compared to last year.
PLDT Chief Financial Officer Annabelle Chua told a briefing that P48 billion of this year’s capex would be used to finance the group’s network platforms, another P16 billion for the installation of modems for home subscribers, P3-4 billion for manpower and other customer requirements, and P2 billion for data center expansions.
“Given the positive trends in 2019 and our plans for 2019, we expect our telco core income to rise to P26 billion..,” Pangilinan said in the statement, up P2 billion.
Capex going forward, he told the briefing, will “probably … not be as high … but it will be high, no longer down to the P30 billion as you have seen in the past.”
PLDT shares fell by P10 or 0.92 percent to close at P1,075 apiece on Thursday, bucking a 0.77-percent gain for the benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index.
FROM A REPORT BY LISBET K. ESMAEL
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