This was contained in the company’s business plan submitted to the Philippine Stock Exchange, which seeks to address its negative equity position amounting to P19.1 million as of end-Dec. 2002.
The company’s strategic direction and financial projection show a return to a position of positive equity by 2013.
Piltel is eyeing a net income of P402.4 million this year on revenues of P5.79 billion. Profits are projected to increase further to P738.9 million and P1.08 billion in 2005 and 2006, respectively.
Revenues, on the other hand, are seen to hit P7.24 billion and P8.13 billion in 2005 and 2006, respectively.
Piltel, which is partly owned by Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., has projected a net loss of P3.33 billion in 2003. It incurred a net loss of P21.8 billion in 2002.
To improve its financial position, Piltel is targeting the D and E market segments as the main source of growth and will continue providing affordable handset models for first time GSM (global system for mobile communications) users in the provincial areas.
Piltel also intends to continue investments in wireless data services that cater more to the D and E markets and to explore product offerings similar to PLDT.
Since the launch of Talk ’N Text, its prepaid GSM brand in April 2000, Piltel’s business has increasingly become centered on the GSM cellular business with revenues from that sector now making up more than 90 percent of the company’s revenues.
In that time, Piltel has built Talk ’N Text into the third largest GSM service provider in the Philippines with approximately 2.9 million subscribers as of end 2003. Piltel expects its GSM subscriber base to hit 3.68 million at the end of this year.
Piltel trimmed its losses to P1.33 billion for the first nine months of 2003 from P2.93 billion in the same period last year. Better sales of Talk ’N Text for July to Sept. helped reduce Piltel’s net loss by 55 percent year-on-year.
Talk ‘N Text’s subscriber base grew by 52 percent to 2.54 million subscribers as of end-September, from 1.67 million subscribers a year ago. It added approximately 320,000 new subscribers in the third quarter alone.
Piltel reported a 40-percent decrease in its operating expenses to P2.75 billion from P4.63 billion a year earlier, largely due to the 83-percent decline in depreciation charges resulting from the writedown of assets in end-2002.
Other expenses rose 178-percent year-on-year due to a foreign exchange loss of P1 billion compared with the year-earlier P155 million. Piltel also booked an impairment charge of P280 million for its investments in ACeS Philippines Cellular Satellite Corp.