PLDT sets record-high P92 billion capex for 2021

MANILA, Philippines — PLDT Inc., the country’s largest integrated telco, is earmarking as much as P92 billion for capital expenditures next year, a record-high for the company, as it heeds government’s call to deliver world-class services.

PLDT chief revenue officer and Smart Communications Inc. president and CEO Alfredo Panlilio said the company is looking to spend between P88 billion to P92 billion in 2021.

“We invested P73 billion last year, and we are ending this year with approximately the same level of capex spend. Our capex commitment next year is at a level that will be 20 percent to 25 percent higher than this year’s capex, focused on expanding our fiber footprint and our wireless coverage,” Panlilio said.

“With the surge in demand for data, we are prepared to invest between P88 billion and P92 billion next year to meet the requirements of all our mobile and fixed line customers,” he said.

PLDT has originally allocated an all-time high capex budget of P83 billion this year, but was reduced due to supply disruptions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We support the call of the President to improve our services, and we have spent around P260 billion in the last five years investing in our infrastructure,” Panlilio said.

“We want to benchmark ourselves, not just with local competition, but with our neighboring countries like Thailand and Vietnam, as we would want our network performance to ultimately be at par with global companies. This is our aspiration, to really bring that level of service to the Filipino people,” he said.

To elevate the Philippines to global standards, Smart is looking at minimum average broadband speeds of at least 30 mbps in Metro Manila and key cities by 2021, using appropriate devices on the LTE network.

By 2025, Panlilio said 84 percent of the population covered would be at 60 mbps.

Meanwhile, PLDT is looking at minimum average broadband speeds of 20 mbps as the company accelerates the migration of its legacy DSL copper subscribers to fiber and fiber-like services.

PLDT’s fiber infrastructure, the most extensive in the country, is now at more than 422,000 kilometers. This fiber infrastructure supports Smart’s 5G, 4G, 3G and 2G networks, which cover 96 percent of the population and are present in 95 percent of cities and municipalities.

Smart has also increased the number of its base stations to over 58,000 as of November, 20 percent more compared to its end-2019 total.