PLDT’s 5-year

“Aside from building vital digital infrastructure, the PLDT Group is doing its share of nation building through the payment of taxes. In 20112016, PLDT and its subsidiaries paid a total of R206.9 billion in various forms of taxes,” he added.

In mobile, PLDT wireless unit Smart Communications is using its capex to roll out more Long Term Evolution (LTE) and 3G base stations to provide high-speed mobile broadband to over 90 percent of the country's cities and municipalities this year.

Doing so will put PLDT’s wireless brands Smart, Sun and TNT back on the growth path, and enable them to take market leadership in mobile data services.

This 2018, PLDT’s capex will exceed R50 billion and is expected to stay at that level over the next two years.

Already, the telco is mid-way through its five-year R260 billion ($5 billion) capital expenditure (capex) program to transform, modernize and expand its fixed and mobile networks to bring world-class communications, Internet and digital services to the country.

PLDT embarked on its network and IT transformation programs a couple of years ago, on top of the nearly R175 billion or $3.4 billion capex for network building from 2011 to 2015.

"For every R1 of service revenue, we reinvest between R0.30-R0.35 in the business to super-charge our networks and advance our digital transformation program,” explained PLDT Chairman and CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan.

“This is a massive effort to turn our networks into powerful, pervasive and resilient platforms for delivering relevant digital services and solutions that our people can use to improve their daily lives, as well as enable the country to compete and thrive in this digital age.”