SATELLITE television provider Cignal TV Inc. is aiming to hit 1 million subscribers this year given the steady pace of growth that the company has been experiencing over the past few months, Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan said.
Pangilinan, who owns strategic telecommunications, water, media, road toll and power firms, said his company is “bullish” about growth prospects this year, especially since it came from a 34-percent subscriber base expansion in 2014.
“If fortunate, we will reach that mark by the end of this year because we already have 844,000 subscribers as of end last year. We have about 160,000 to go,” said Pangilinan who also owns a free television station.
Satellite television operator Cignal ended 2013 with a 630,000 subscriber base.
The tycoon explained that the growth will come mostly in the second half of the year, as the first half is usually the leaner season in terms of subscriber acquisition.
“Usually the growth in the first quarter is leaner, but it pays up in the second, third, and fourth quarters. The best quarters are the last two quarters of the year,” he said.
The satellite programming operator, which offers up to 97 channels, including 27 high-definition ones, is a unit of dominant telephone-services provider Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT).
The parent company’s bottomline suffered from a spike in subsidies and taxes, booking a 4-percent dip from P35.4 billion in 2013 to P34.1 billion in 2014.
In the same comparative periods, the company recorded a 2-percent increase in total revenues to P170.97 billion, which was outpaced by the 4-percent growth in expenses to P130.46 billion.
Core net income—which strips off one-time gains and losses–was at P37.4 billion, well above its revised target of P37 billion. It was, however, 3 percent lower than the P38.7 billion recorded in 2013.
Lorenz S. Marasigan