DIGITAL services provider PLDT Inc. has cemented its leadership in the enterprise market after posting a solid 13-percent growth in revenues during this year’s first three months to P8.5 billion, thanks to strong data and tech-services uptake.
“We are growing double-digit across all business pillars of the enterprise as PLDT remained the preferred expert partner of companies, given our relevant digital and cloud-based business solutions that run on our robust fixed and wireless networks,” PLDT Chief Revenue Officer Eric R. Alberto said.
During the first quarter, wireless-enterprise revenues grew 15 percent year-on-year, while information and communications technology (ICT) and fixed services improved 11 percent and 13 percent, respectively.
Juan Victor I. Hernandez, who heads the enterprise business of PLDT, said the group is also growing in the right areas with its data and ICT revenues surging 24 percent in the first quarter compared to the same period last year, and now accounts for 66 percent of total enterprise revenues.
“We are seeing a growing acceptance and adoption among our enterprise customers, both large, and small and medium businesses, of cloud-based solutions, disaster recovery and digital services,” Hernandez said.
PLDT, he added, is well positioned to meet this need because of the expertise it has assembled through partnerships with leading tech companies and the “unmatched capacity and resilience” of ePLDT’s data-center network.
Combined with its home segment, PLDT’s fixed-line revenues now account for 46 percent of its consolidated-service revenues or P16.3 billion, which now exceeds its consumer wireless revenues at 41 percent with P14.75 billion.
PLDT’s Enterprise business launched several partnerships with IT industry leaders in the early part of the year to further strengthen its portfolio of digital-business solutions offered to the country’s enterprises, including Microsoft and Cisco.
It also widened its lead in providing data center and managed ICT services through its digital arm ePLDT, as it added two new data-center facilities, bringing to nine the total facilities operated by the PLDT Group.
PLDT expects to have 10 data centers with a total rack capacity of 9,000 by the end of 2017.
“PLDT has been expanding its digital infrastructure in line with the road maps of key industries to fully serve the growing ICT needs of enterprises and government agencies for disaster recovery, cloud-based digital solutions, and a resilient network these solutions will leverage on,” Alberto said.
The telco’s capital expenditures guidance of P46 billion for 2017 will further expand its network infrastructure, including its fiber-optic backbone to best deliver a superior data experience to its fixed and wireless customers.
It continues to invest heavily in its fiber network, which now reaches over 150,000 kilometers of fiber- optic cables running through the archipelago, and also operates four cable-landing stations that serve as gateways for a variety of voice, data, and content traffic that runs through a global network, to and from the country.