PLDT sets sights on new heights

MANILA, Philippines — Telco giant PLDT Inc. has set its sights on new levels of growth in the next three years.

PLDT and Smart Communications Inc. president and CEO Alfredo Panlilio said the company is ready to reach new heights with an aspirational PLDT 2025 vision and strategy.

“Our transformation aims to deliver a holistic financial and non-financial impact through new ways of working, clearer fact base, increased accountability, and higher pace of executing our plans,” Panlilio said.

Under the telco’s 2025 vision, PLDT aims to further elevate customer experience, improve its standing as a premier workplace in the country, and establish industry-leading operational excellence across the group.

It also seeks to grow profits through new businesses and capabilities, and make PLDT the region’s leading ESG (environmental, social, and governance) telco.

“We have set our transformation goals: to become a company that our customers advocate for, our competitors admire, our shareholders value, and our employees love to work for,” Panlilio said.

“As we journey on this program toward PLDT 2025, I look forward to transforming to thrive as we craft this new future for PLDT,” he said.

For this year, Panlilio said PLDT has set its ambitions high, with the goal of being the best in connectivity markets, best in ICT markets and best in capital markets.

He said the company is staying optimistic on the company’s growth momentum amidst the shifting industry landscape.

“As we build on success after success, our transformation will enable us to execute game-changing moves that will impact not just our financials, but also the way the market perceives us,” Panlilio said.

PLDT’s telco core income is expected to grow to P33 billion this year from P30 billion in 2021.

Service revenues, on the other hand, is seen posting a mid-single digit growth, while EBITDA is seen reaching over P100 billion.

The company has as earlier raised its capital spending program this year to P85 billion from its original capex guidance of P76 billion to P80 billion to support updated business requirements.

The increase will support updated requirements for the home broadband and data center businesses.

“Capex will be managed this year, where we peaked capex in 2021, as we manage the glide to below 40 percent of service revenues in the medium-term,” Panlilio said.