PLDT earmarks P83 billion capex for 2020
MANILA, Philippines — Telco giant PLDT Inc. announced Thursday it will earmark another record-high capital expenditure in 2020 to sustain “unmatched” customer experience amid the looming entry of a third player in the industry.
In a statement, the Manuel V. Pangilinan-led company said it allocated a budget of P83 billion to bankroll its expenditure plans this year, higher than 2019’s level. Of that amount, P64.6 billion will be spent on network and IT projects to support growth in data traffic.
“This will allow us to serve better the fast-growing data usage of our customers and continue to provide superior data (customer experience),” Pangilinan said.
According to PLDT, its actual capex last year hit P72.9 billion, below the P78.4 billion that the company had hoped to spend. For 2020, P18.5 billion — inclusive of P5.5 billion carried over from 2019 — will be spent on broadband installations.
“Moving forward, we shall continue pursuing a focused investment program to further improve our services, and consequently raise the level of customer experience,” Pangilinan said.
Including “exceptional” costs, PLDT’s net income jumped 19% to P22.5 billion in 2019, boosted mainly by 20% revenue growth on the company’s consumer wireless unit to P72.1 billion. Data and broadband services also helped power revenue growth, the company said, rising 20% to P105.2 billion last year.
On the other hand, PLDT’s rival, Globe Telecom, recently announced it is hiking its capital expenditures to P63 billion this year, up 23.5% year-on-year from last year’s record-high of P51 billion.
The telco duopoly has been beefing up their war chest ahead of the arrival of the new entrant, Dito Telecommunity, which promised to cover 37% of the population with 27 mbps minimum average internet speed on its first year.
However, the new coronavirus, which emerged from China, is stalling the third telco player’s commercial launch as its Chinese partner takes the brunt of the health crisis, and experts warned the delays would surely benefit the incumbents as they move to further protect their market share.
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