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Monday, February 23, 2004
PLDT to enter markets overseas in 5 yrs.: exec
AFTER reporting a near quadrupling of its net income in 2003, the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) is now looking to extend its reach beyond Philippine shores.
In an interview Friday, PLDT chairman Manuel Pangilinan said the company was looking to penetrate other parts of Asia within the next five years.
The telephone giant would pick a “developing market with a fairly large population base and a good middle class,” he said on the sidelines of the 16th Visayas annual membership meeting of the Philippine Business for Social Progress at City Sports Club Cebu.
Pangilinan said this expansion would be possible because PLDT would already be “much stronger” in the next two to three years.
Last Thursday, PLDT reported 2003 profit of P11.2 billion, against P3 billion in 2002.
Pangilinan has said in published reports that the company is “comfortable” with realizing a net profit of P17 to P18 billion this year.
Wireless
PLDT’s growth was driven mainly by the phenomenal success of its wireless service, Smart Communications, which reported a net income of P16.1 billion for 2003, nearly P10 billion above its 2002 performance.
The lower prices of handsets and the availability of lower airtime load values for prepaid subscribers have pushed up the market penetration of the cellular service in the Philippines to about 27 percent.
With the popularity of the prepaid service, Pangilinan said, the penetration rate is expected to “be in excess of 30 percent” this year.
PLDT’s wireless units, Smart and Piltel Talk N’ Text, have a combined 13 million subscribers.
For the fixed line service, however, the PLDT chief said the penetration was only a little over 3.2 million or about four percent of the population for the whole industry.
He told Sun.Star it was “impossible” to have a 100 percent landline penetration because it is too expensive.
But for data requirements, the best solution is landlines, he said.
Broadband
As for helping Cebu become an information technology (IT) hub, Pangilinan said: “Our principal role is to provide connectivity. That’s why we have a big capex (capital expenditure) for more broadband capability.”
He said the prices of telecommunications services had gone down, including for broadband with Digital Subscriber Line now going for just P1,500 a month for unlimited use of the Internet.
These rates, he said, are competitive with the broadband rates in the United States and South Korea.
According to him, it was still possible for broadband rates to go down further.
Beyond broadband, Pangilinan said there were other things needed for an area to become an IT hub, for instance, “appliances,” like personal computers.
He said this is why PLDT has an initiative called Cyber Madness organized in cooperation with PC dealers and banks to bring down the price of computers.
He added that there was a need for “education and IT infrastructure.” CTL
(February 23, 2004 issue)
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