MANILA, Philippines — Broadcast giant GMA Network Inc. saw profits rise by over a quarter last year as revenues soared to all-time high level.
GMA reported a net income of P7.57 billion in 2021, up 26 percent over the previous year’s P6.01 billion.
Driving the company’s profitability was its strong consolidated revenues, which jumped to an all-time high of P22.45 billion, a 16 percent increase from P19.34 billion in 2020.
“Apart from maintaining dominance in the free-to-air broadcasting arena, this year’s exceptional top line was further boosted by the presence of political advocacies amounting to more than three quarters of a billion pesos,” GMA said.
GMA’s consolidated advertising revenues (airtime, online, and international) comprised 94 of the company’s revenue pie in 2021 at P21.02 billion.
“It can be recalled that it was in early May of last year when closest rival ABS-CBN’s free-to-air Channel 2 went off air following the issuance of a cease and desist order to operate by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) upon the expiration of ABS’s 25-year franchise. From then on, the network’s revenues were buoyed by the shift in advertising placements from the defunct channel,” GMA said.
Meanwhile, sale of services, which include subscription revenues and subsidiaries’ operations finished 2021 with a top-line of P907 million, went down by 11 percent year-on-year.
The company’s venture into the sale of merchandise mainly from GMA Affordabox pitched in revenues of P528 million, 10 percent lower year-on-year.
GMA said total units sold for the set-top box since it was launched in May last year have reached 1.7 million units amounting to over P1 billion.
“Notwithstanding the protracted pandemic, which continued to hamper the full recovery of the economy due to the country’s intermittent lockdowns, limited mobility and restricted business operations, GMA Network and subsidiaries remained unwavering and once again broke all financial records for the 12 months this 2021,”it said.