Telco announces leadership revamp as Q1 profit plateaus
MANILA — The country’s biggest telecom company yesterday announced changes at the top after reporting flat earnings in the first three months of the year.
In a briefing, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) executives said it earned P9.39 billion in the January to March period, flat from the P9.38 billion in the same three months of last year. Removing one-off items, core profit of P9.3 billion was lower than last year’s P9.8 billion.
Revenue also was flat at P42.6 billion this year, as against P42.56 billion in 2014. Service revenue, which accounted for 95 percent of total revenue, fell 2 percent to P40.5 billion this year from P41.24 billion last year.
“While our core revenue sources undergo this transition phase where the erosion of our high-margin legacy businesses still outpaces the growth of our newer initiatives for now, we are taking significant steps to ensure that we are ready and prepared for the digital future," Manuel V. Pangilinan, PLDT chairman said.
Citing PLDT’s investment in Rocket Internet, Pangilinan said the company needs to transform its infrastructure and provide a “digital spine” for its networks. PLDT plunked in $445 million in Rocket Internet, which owns e-commerce platforms Zalora and Lazada.
"We also need to refresh our leadership team and, accordingly, we have just announced a major reorganization of some of our senior executives. We also welcome two new members with exemplary credentials - Winston Damarillo, our new chief strategy officer, and Joachim Horn, our chief technology and integration advisor,” Pangilinan said. (Interaksyon.com)