PLDT boosts wireless revenues

MANILA, Philippines — Telco giant PLDT Inc. said its mobile phone business expanded by 20 percent year-on-year in the first half, fueled by a surge in mobile data revenues, which now account for two-thirds of total revenues.

PLDT said service revenues of its individual wireless business, which includes consumer sales of Smart, Sun and TNT mobile brands, jumped to P34.4 billion, driven by the continued growth of mobile data traffic.

Smart, TNT and Sun added 8.7 million new subscribers in the first semester, bringing the total to over 66.8 million as of the end of June.

A growing number of its customers have also shifted to LTE SIMs and LTE smartphones.

“Our earlier YouTube promos have already succeeded in making video viewing and mobile games very popular among our Smart subscribers who, not coincidentally, have made the biggest shift to LTE SIMs and devices,” said Oscar Reyes Jr., PLDT senior vice president and head of consumer business—individual group.

Taking off from last year’s Free YouTube promo, the current Video Everyday promo was seen pushing the growth of video usage.

Aside from the additional 43 percent increase in YouTube users, PLDT said the number of viewers of the NBA, iWant and iflix video services more than doubled.

PLDT said the new Giga Gaming platform was also a growth driver in the first half, with the number of unique new Mobile Legends gamers on the network increasing by more than 160 percent from end-2018 to end-June 2019.

Data traffic from Mobile Legends users more than tripled in the first half, PLDT said.

“Our thrust for the balance of 2019 is to bring these compelling services to low- and non-data users, who we are targeting to move up to LTE SIMs and devices so they can start experiencing our superior LTE network service,” Reyes said.

PLDT has set aside a historic-high capital expenditure program this year amounting to P78.4 billion to further enhance the reach and capacity of its fiber-powered fixed line broadband network and LTE and 3G mobile networks, as well as modernize its IT support systems.