PLDT Inc. on  Thursday announced that its net income grew by 16 percent in the second quarter of year despite the coronavirus virus disease 2019 (COVID) 19 pandemic. 

The country’s largest telco said net profit amounted to P6.44 billion in the April to June period, higher from P5.51 billion in the same period last year.

This brought the first half net income to P12.42 billion, up by 1 percent to P12.23 billion in the same period last year. 

The company’s core net income amounted to P12.86 billion in the first half of the year, up by 5 percent from P13.86 billion in the same period last year. 

“We are obviously pleased that our numbers have held up well despite the challenging times and we are hopeful that we can maintain a bottom line similar to 2019. But more importantly, we are happy that we have been able to provide uninterrupted, essential communications services to our countrymen,“ Manuel V. Pangilinan, PLDT chairman, president and chief executive  said. 

“This pandemic has underscored how staying connected is crucial to everyone’s lives. We are social creatures by nature and thankfully, technology has made it possible to keep in touch, even during a lockdown,” he added. 

PLDT posted total service revenues amounting to P82.8 billion in the first half of the year, higher by 8 percent compared to the same period last year. 

The company said quarantine restrictions starting mid-March trimmed service revenues to P41.3 billion in  second quarter of 2020. This was slightly lower than the P41.5 billion in revenues posted in the first quarter 2020, but still 7 percent higher year-on-year. 

Data and broadband revenues reached P59 billion, up by  18 percent year- on-year.  While the  Consumer Wireless Individual Business Group continued to set the pace, growing 16 percent versus a year ago to P39.8 billion on the back of continued strong growth of wireless data usage. 

PLDT Home revenues grew 7 percent  to P19.6 billion despite the operational constraints on our ability to install new connections by quarantine restrictions, while 

PLDT Enterprise grew service revenues to P20.3 billion, up 5 percent from the previous year. 

“Our strong performance will allow us to further boost our already significant investments. These investments, which total some Php260 billion over the past five years, enabled our networks to carry all the additional traffic during these past few months and also to bring new technologies such as 5G which we launched just last week,” Pangilinan said.  

“Given that our network rollout efforts have regained momentum, we are levelling up our target capital expenditures for 2020 back up to about P70 billion. The balance of our original P83 billion capex budget will be spent next year,” he added. 

PLDT continued its network expansion program despite pandemic conditions. The company extended the reach of its fixed broadband service to cover some 7.8 million homes passed by in the first half of 2020, up 8 percent from end-2019. 

The total number of available fiber-powered ports increased 5 percent to 3.67 million, with 1.6 million available for new customers. 

Moreover, the total footprint of PLDT’s fiber optic network grew 11 percent to about 358,700 kilometers – the country’s most extensive digital data infrastructure. 

Smart also expanded its mobile data network on 4G/LTE and 3G. In the first half of 2020, Smart added 2,500 LTE base stations, raising the total by over 10 percent from end-2019 to over 27,100. This included about 1,100 LTE base stations that were installed from end- March to June. The number of 3G base stations was also raised by about 1,200, bringing the total to about 15,000. 

Smart’s 4G and 3G mobile data service now reaches over 95 percent of the country’s population. 

“Our promise is this – to keep improving and upgrading your connections so that all faces of life – be it work, education, family, health, business – will benefit ,” Pangilinan said