Meralco’s core 9-month income climbs to B

At 3.0-percent rise, the consolidated core income of power utility giant Manila Electric Company (Meralco) inched up to R15.370 billion in this year’s first nine months from the 2016 level of R14.966 billion.

On the consolidated reported net income, the first three quarters logged R15.928 billion from the year-ago level of R15.676 billion, according to company Chief Finance Officer Betty Siy-Yap.

She indicated that the financial results continued to be on a favorable pace primarily due to the rise in energy sales, that was considered “surprising” if referenced on the company’s earlier projections.

The upturn in financial result, as of this year’s third quarter had prompted Meralco Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan to forecast overall better performance this year from R19.6 billion in 2016.

“With only two months remaining in 2017, we are indicating a guidance on 2017 consolidated core net income to be a slight improvement over the amount reported in 2016,” he stressed. No specific figure has been given though.

On sales, company president Oscar S. Reyes noted that sales across all segments had grown, primarily in the third quarter, at a pace that had been “unprecedented,” emphasizing that for residential end-users, the sales increase had been 4.0-percent; commercial sector by 5.0-percent; and industrial customers by 4.0-percent.

With this “unprecedented twist” in energy sales in recent months, Meralco Senior Vice President Alfredo S. Panlilio indicated that such gives the utility firm confidence to target sales growth of 4.4 to 4.5-percent overall this year.

He noted that demand growth logged in the last quarter had been mainly from their customers in the South, and shored up by the expansion in customer base, which already reached 6.25 million subscribers to-date.