PLDT Home revenues rise 14% on strong fiber, video on demand

MANILA, Philippines — PLDT Home, the consumer group of telco and digital services provider PLDT, reported a 14 percent rise in revenues to P18 billion on  strong customer demand for fiber broadband connectivity and a growing appetite for bundled services like video entertainment.

“By mid-2018, PLDT Home’s household penetration climbed to an all-time-high of 2.22 million, an increase of nine percent year-on-year in unique subscribers,”  said Oscar Enrico Reyes Jr, PLDT and Smart senior vice president and head of consumer business market development.

“Moreover, the average revenue per subscriber has increased by four percent to a new high of P1,389 as more subscribers are signing up for new high-speed fiber plans bundled with video streaming services such as Cignal, iFlix and Netflix. PLDT Home also continues to promote its Best Buy Bundles that offer PLDT, Smart, and Cignal TV services in one bill,” he added.

Reyes said the improvements were made possible by PLDT’s accelerated deployment of its fiber-powered fixed line broadband network which was recently recognized in the Ookla Speedtest as the Philippines’ fastest internet network.

PLDT’s average speed of 17.3 mbps is more than 1.5 times faster than that of the second placer, and nearly three times faster than the fourth placer on the list.

 During the first half, PLDT expanded the coverage of its fiber-powered fixed broadband network to 5.1 million homes passed nationwide, up from four million as of the end of  end 2017, to reach nearly 100 percent of its full year target.

 PLDT also boosted its capacity by about 86 percent to 1.86 million ports, or almost 85 percent of its full-year target of 2.2 million ports.

 The telco giant is speeding up the deployment of both fiber-to-the-home lines while transforming its existing DSL lines into hybrid fiber-powered broadband lines to enable speed upgrades for its DSL customers.

“There is strong demand for high-speed home fiber. Where the service is available, customer take up is strong. We’ve enhanced this process by focusing our roll out in the areas that we’ve found to have ready customers for fiber broadband,” Reyes said.

 He said more customers are looking for the higher-speed plans such as Plan 1699 and Plan 1899 because these plans can provide high-quality video viewing.

“People’s growing preference for video entertainment on-demand is boosting the need for high-speed broadband at home,” Reyes said.

 “To complement the fiber service deployment, PLDT Home has also started to offer an affordable prepaid fixed wireless broadband service - the PLDT Home WiFi - that runs on Smart’s LTE network. Easy to use, instantly activated, and can connect up to five devices, the prepaid Home WiFi is perfect for the family,” Reyes said.

 For 2018, the modernization and expansion of PLDT’s fixed and mobile networks are being supported by a massive capital expenditure of P58 billion.