Telco expenses sink Dennis Uy's DITO CME to losses

MANILA, Philippines — DITO CME Holdings Corp. incurred losses in the first three quarters as it prodigiously spent on the rollout of its namesake telco unit. 

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Tuesday, the company owned by Davao-based businessman Dennis Uy reported a net loss of P2.81 billion in the first nine months owing to hefty operating expenses of Dito Telecommunity Corp, which recently passed two technical audits this year.

At the same time, DITO CME’s operating loss amounted to P1.46 billion during the period.

“DITO Tel is playing the long game. From day one we did mention already that building a telco from scratch will be very much capital extensive but the milestones reached in just nine months of operation is encouraging to say the least,” Eric Alberto, company president, said.

Dito CME’s telco venture bagged a 25-year franchise valid util 2048 following the Duterte administration’s campaign to introduce a third telco player to break the longstanding telco duopoly of Ayala-owned Globe Telecom Inc. and Pangilinan-run PLDT Inc.

Financial results showed Dito CME generated P327 million revenues from January to September, yielding a P287 million gross profit.

Since the start of commercial rollout of DITO CME’s China-backed telco consortium in March, the new service provider now has presence in 340 cities and municipalities and has so far bagged four million subscribers.

Likewise, the rollout saw the construction of 3,300 cell towers, with more than 4,400 sites on track to go live in the next 12 months. These capital intensive activities pushed up Dito CME’s liabilities to P102.85 billion as of end-September.

Shares in DITO CME fell 1.49% to close at P5.95 each on Tuesday.