PLDT expects sustained growth in home broadband business

MANILA, Philippines — Integrated telecommunications company PLDT Inc. sees no slowing down for its home broadband business  as the economy further opens up.

Increased demand for connectivity for work-from-home, online learning and streaming have propelled PLDT Home to post a record 11 percent or P4.3 billion increase in revenues last year to P41.4 billion.

PLDT Home is seen sustaining the double-digit growth in revenues this year and is targeting to hit over 100,000 monthly average installations.

“I don’t think there will be a complete return to normal ‘normal’ we knew once. I don’t think we’ll completely revert back to where we were,”  PLDT chairman, president and CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan said.

“ In the case of the group itself, we’re not assuming that when things turn to normal that all the employees will go back to work. We’re anticipating that x percent will continue to work from home, they really don’t need to go back to the office to work. I think certain behavior will stay where it is during the pandemic,” he said.

PLDT’s continuing rollout of its fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) facilities has made its broadband services available to more customers.

PLDT’s FTTH currently reaches 48 percent of the total 1,634 cities and municipalities nationwide.

Pangilinan said there are very active and nimble competitors in the fixed broadband business which the company has to watch out for.

“But you know, you’ve seen how aggressive we are as well in terms of our home marketing plans across the board and in terms of capex build out,” he said.

PLDT aims to further expand its fiber network by 125,000 kilometers this year, the most in a single year in the history of the company.

As of end 2020, PLDT’s fiber optic network has a footprint that reaches 429,000 kilometers, the country’s most extensive digital data infrastructure.

“The 125,000 kms in one year is the highest ever. We are well underway in achieving that,” Smart Communications Inc. next generation technology solutions advisor Joachim Horn said.