Digitel’s net income for the period amounted to P151.3 million, compared with P334 million in the first quarter of 2010.
Consolidated service and non-service revenues, however, surged 15 percent to P4.524 billion from P3.904 billion revenue. This was driven by the 22.2 percent and 5.7 percent increases in wireless and wireline data service revenues, respectively.
Consolidated Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) for the period was P1.513 billion, higher by 22.5 percent than the P1.235.5 billion in the same period in 2010 due to higher service and non-service revenues generated by the wireless business.
Sun Cellular continued to strengthen its Sun Broadband Wireless service, with more and more internet users clamoring for its affordable broadband wireless service at break-neck speeds.
Sun Broadband Wireless service utilizes the most advanced 3.5G HSPA (High-Speed Packet Access) technology on an all-IP network.
Wireless revenues grew 22.2 percent to P3.724 billion in the first quarter from P3,047.9 million during the same period last year. This was mainly attributable to the continued success of the unlimited service portfolio.
As at March 31, Digitel mobile phone subscribers stood at 14.06 million. Of the total, 1.31 million are postpaid subscribers, an improvement of 32.3 percent from more than 990,000 subscribers as at March 31, 2010.
Prepaid subscribers grew to 12.75 million from 12.29 million a year before.
Wireline voice revenue fell 8 percent to P678.7 million in the first quarter from P742.1 million mainly due to lower revenues from international and domestic tolls, and local exchange.
Revenues for wireline data communication services increased 5.7 percent to P121.4 million from P114.9 million. This was mainly due to higher revenues coming from new connections on domestic data and internet, and increased IPVPN services subscriptions.
On March 29, the board of directors of PLDT and JG Summit Holdings Inc., approved the acquisition by PLDT of JGSHI’s and certain other seller-parties’ ownership interest in Digitel comprising of: 3,277,135,882 common shares in Digitel, representing about 51.55 percent of the issued common stock; zero-coupon convertible bonds issued by Digitel and its subsidiary to JGSHI and its subsidiary, which are convertible at June 2011, into about 18.6 billion common shares of Digitel; and intercompany advances of P34.1 billion made by JGSHI to Digitel.
Digitel operates a fixed line business in certain parts of the country and is the 100 percent owner of Digitel Mobile Philippines Inc., which is engaged in mobile telecommunications business and owns the brand.
The transaction is intended to be completed by the end of the second quarter of 2011 after approvals from Philippine stock Exchange, Security Exchange Commission and National Telecommunications Commission are secured.
