Infocom sees modest growth this year

Infocom Technologies, Inc., the Internet company of local dominant carrier Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), expects a modest growth in its revenues this year but aims to capture a bigger market share next year.

This, Infocom aims to accomplish, by shifting from being a mere Internet service provider (ISP) to providing e-solution services.

Infocom chief operating officer Cecilio Lorenzo said the company projects a 31 percent revenue growth this year to P339.2 million as against last year’s P258.1 million. In 1999, Infocom generated revenues of P194.5 million.

Lorenzo explained that the company’s performance this year was affected by the prevailing economic condition as well as the slowdowns in PC penetration growth in the country.

"The slight drop in performance in terms of revenue growth could be brought by almost anything affecting the industry. Poor markets conditions is one. Another is the fact that many still do not own computers," he said.

Infocom, which has 14 percent of the market, ranks second as the country’s leading ISP provider, next only to Pacific Internet and Sky Internet both of which have a 19 percent market share. I-Manilas follows with eight percent while the remaining 40 percent is shared by around 175 others.

Right now, there are 179 ISPs operating in the country, of which 36 offer prepaid Internet services.

Lorenzo said that because the PC penetration growth has slowed down, Infocom’s increased revenues will come largely from getting a bigger share of the market, as well as from increased number of corporate clients and prepaid subscribers.

Infocom currently has 27,320 postpaid subscribers, more than 500 of whom are corporate clients. Officials project the number of postpaid clients to slightly decline to 27,156 by yearend.

Lorenzo, meanwhile, projects the number of corporate subscribers to double next year as well as that of prepaid Internet card subscribers from the current 3,000 to 4,000 users per day.

Infocom used to be known as SequelNet before it entered into a strategic alliance with PLDT in 1996. Earlier this year, Infocom became a subsidiary of ePLDT, the Internet and multi-media arm of PLDT.

Infocom uses state-of-the art network that accesses PLDT’s extensive fiber optic and digital microwave transmission network to ensure reliability, scalability and availability for its subscribers.

The company also paves the way towards building a nationwide Internet backbones that connects an unlimited number of business, schools, government agencies, and NGOs in the archipelago to the information superhighway.