Sky Cable spending P1.5-P2 B to sustain broadband growth

MANILA, Philippines - Sky Cable Corp., the pay TV arm of ABS-CBN Corp., is spending between P1.5 billion and P2 billion for its capital expenditures this year to help sustain the strong growth in its broadband service.

SkyCable chief operating officer Rodrigo Montinola said in an interview with reporters that the amount would be used to expand its pay TV business nationwide as it sees subscribers hitting one million over the next 24 months from the current level of 800,000.

“I think for what is covered by cable, the mid to upper end of the market we have satisfied with the way we cover the market. Our objective is to basically cover the entire country as well so we can also provide the content in cable to other customers,” Montinola said.

Montinola pointed out that half of the budget would be allocated to expand the service of Sky Broadband in major cities nationwide.

“Broadband is obviously growing much faster in terms of rate. Right now we are about 100,000 and we are growing roughly at 20 to 25 percent year-on-year and we expect that trajectory to continue,” he said.

According to Montinola, only 15 percent of the TV population in the Philippines are pay TV subscribers that is expected to increase with the continued improvement in the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate.

“Currently the penetration rate for pay TV is just 15 percent. As the economy grows, people who cannot afford to do the monthly payments would be finally able to do that. So I think there is still room for growth there,” he said.

Meanwhile, SkyCable launched the Sky On-Demand service to allow subscribers to catch-up on their missed episodes or relive their favorite movies directly on TV.

Made possible by the impressive and growing video-on-demand library of iWant TV, SKY On-Demand allows every member of the family to catch-up on episodes of local and foreign cable TV shows using their big TV screen at home.

The newly-launched service runs on the most advanced digibox to date – harnessing the capabilities of SkyCable and Sky Broadband subscriptions to utilize the popular video streaming site, iWant TV.