Telecom executive Napoleon Nazareno, president of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), Smart Communications Inc. and Pilipino Telephone Corp. (Piltel), has been appointed to head Connectivity Unlimited Resource Enterprise (CURE), Smart’s newly acquired unit offering the first ad-funded mobile-phone service in Asia.

“Yes, I am now the president of CURE. It took effect when we bought the shares of the companies that used to own CURE,” he said. Smart will closely monitor how the market will respond to CURE’s business model. CURE unveiled on Monday its cellular brand ümobile.

“We will invest $5 million into CURE to serve as initial working capital. We will look at the business strategy that has been put in place by CURE with the ad-funding mobile service, then we will revisit the requirements of CURE,” said Nazareno.

On Piltel, the country’s third-largest cellular operator, Nazareno said yesterday the cellular subsidiary of Smart will report higher core net income this year compared with the P8.5 billion it registered in 2007.

“Our core guidance for Piltel this year is between P8.5 billion and P9.5 billion,” he told reporters at the sidelines of the annual meeting.

Piltel, which is 92 percent owned by Smart, expects to post double-digit growth this year, added Nazareno. Its net income in the first quarter went up by 24 percent to P2.46 billion on the back of higher revenues and lower expenses. Revenues grew 17 percent to P4.2 billion. The growth came from the 1.25-million additional subscribers registered during the period. At end-March, Piltel had 11 million subscribers, and already surpassed the 11.5-million mark in April.

“Our subscriber take-up in Piltel is doing very good. April and May months are quite doing well,” he said.

Piltel’s subscriber net additions of close to 1.8 million for the first four months of the year are already 70 percent of the company’s net additions for the whole of 2007. “We will aim to sustain this strong performance for the balance of the year,” added Nazareno. 

Piltel told its shareholders yesterday that the board has decided to declare an interim dividend to its common shareholders keyed off first half of 2008 core earnings. 

“The company’s board of directors has decided to mark this milestone by paying out approximately 100 percent of Piltel’s core earnings for the first half of 2008. The dividend’s record and payment dates will be announced after the company discloses its first-half financial results in early August,” said Nazareno.

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Telecom executive Napoleon Nazareno, president of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), Smart Communications Inc. and Pilipino Telephone Corp. (Piltel), has been appointed to head Connectivity Unlimited Resource Enterprise (CURE), Smart’s newly acquired unit offering the first ad-funded mobile-phone service in Asia.

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