PhilWeb more than doubles first quarter income

MANILA, Philippines – PhilWeb Corp., the country’s first publicly listed Internet company, more than doubled its net income in the first quarter of 2009, showing continued strength in its core gaming businesses.

“Our net income was up 108 percent versus the same quarter last year or a total of P96 million as against P46.2 million. That’s more than double the previous year,” PhilWeb president Dennis Valdes said.

PhilWeb previously reported that 2008 was a banner year for the company, with monthly records set for total gross bets of P5.5 billion and Casino Win of P167 million in their Pagcor e-Games Cafe network alone. Other business lines, like Basketball Jackpot and mobile games such as Premyo Sa Resibo, also showed strong results.

“We had an excellent first three months this year. January beat December, and February would have beaten January if not for the fact that it has three days less, and now, March has reset both these records in our PEGS Cafes. Gross Bets for March alone totaled P5.7 billion and Casino Win was P194 million,“ Valdes added.

At this pace, he pointed out that the company’s revenue stream from the cafe network is running at a 108-percent rate compared to the same period last year.

Total PhilWeb revenue, inclusive of all businesses, totaled P167.6 million for the first quarter of 2009, 89 percent higher than the P88.8 million generated last year.

Valdes noted that growth was coming from all three business lines of the company. “We now have 131 PEGS Cafes, as opposed to 121 at the beginning of the year. Aside from the 10 opened, we are also expediting the opening of 50 more cafes we have in our pipeline. Basketball Jackpot has a newly launched variant, which we call NBA Ending. This will allow our aficionados to place bets during the NBA playoffs that are happening right now. And Premyo Sa Resibo continues its support for the BIR’s campaign to get consumers to ask for their official receipts,” he said.

PhilWeb posted a net income of P292 million in 2008, 31 percent more than the P223 million generated in the previous year.

Revenues totaled P450 million from P267 million in 2007, or a 68 percent growth.

Valdes attributed the strong performance of the company to the excellent results posted by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) e-Games Café network. “We ended 2008 with 121 cafes, a growth of 45 new cafes for the year. Clearly, consumers are gradually noticing our cafes as their number increases, and the almost 20,000 that play with us daily are pleased with the gaming and entertainment products we offer,” he said.

Operating income rose to P207 million, a 71 percent growth compared with the previous year. Valdes pointed out that the growth in operating income was higher than the revenue growth rate, which means that the company did not grow expenses as fast as it did revenues.

He also noted that the company’s cash position is particularly noteworthy as total cash is now at P702 million. PhilWeb’s businesses generated P206 million in positive cash flow last year, which indicates the strength in the gaming market

Valdes said they will use these funds to aggressively invest in new games of chance and other opportunities that come their way this year.

“We believe this is a recession-proof business as our strongest month last year was December. During that month, despite all the holidays which normally dampen our volumes, our PEGS Café network broke all records. We set the record for total gross bets in one month, with a total of P5.5 billion. In one day alone, we set a record with P239 million in gross bets. The Casino Win was also record-setting, with a record of P167 million for December, the best ever for the business,” Valdes said.

“The past year has turned out to be a record year for PhilWeb, wherein we recorded our highest ever levels of revenue and net income, so we are quite optimistic that this trend will accelerate in 2009,” Valdes said.