Bayanihan Media Awards National Winner

PLDT Home: Robust broadband demand, accelerated migration sustain record revenues

PLDT is fastest broadband, SMART is best in mobile coverage for 1H2022

President Al Panlilio test drives PLDT-Smart’s first all-electric vehicle, benefits of which are equivalent cost per kilometer lower than regular vehicle; lower GHG emissions; able to travel 300kms on full charge: no interruption to ability to serve customers; supports Republic Act 11697 (Electric Vehicle Industry Development Act); PLDT/Smart re-fleeting strategy to progressively include more e-vehicles

As home broadband use remained robust with customers sustaining the hybrid model of work and study from home set-ups, fiber-only service revenues grew 62% or ₱8.9 billion to ₱23.2 billion for the first half of 2022, driving total PLDT Home service revenues to ₱28.1 billion, up 24% or ₱5.4 billion year-on-year for the first half of the year.

Fiber-only revenues account for 82% of total Home revenues, up from 63% from a year ago. Home added more than 401,000 net fiber subscribers in the first half of the year, bringing total fixed broadband subscribers to 3.2 million, on the back of continued strong customer demand and unparalleled network quality.

In the first half of the year, total fiber capacity further increased by 16% to 6.72 million ports, as homes passed grew 17% to 16.2 million. In the first half of the year, PLDT added 950,000 ports out of the total 1.7 million target for the full year. PLDT’s fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) is present in 65% of the country’s cities and municipalities.

PLDT Home inked an exclusive partnership with LionsGate Play, the fast-growing Southeast Asian streaming platform of the global content studio behind major franchise properties such as John Wick and The Hunger Games. LionsGate Play launched in the Philippines in June.

Affirming PLDT Home’s commitment to keep families safer at home, PLDT Home and Google have partnered for the “Be Internet Awesome” campaign, educating Filipino children and families about online safety and digital citizenship.

PLDT has also continuously enhanced its digital customer service channels, allowing customers to conveniently pay bills, report service issues, track service repair tickets and new service applications, and monitor service interruptions. These include the official PLDT Home Facebook Messenger via the PLDT Home Digital Assistant (https://m.me/PLDTHome), and the PLDT tracker on its website.

Paybox kiosks where customers can pay their bills have also been deployed in PLDT and Smart stores nationwide. Other digital payment options are the all-in-one money app Maya and platforms like PayExpress Online, Lazada, and Shopee.

PLDT Home remains to be the fastest broadband in the Philippines. The global benchmarking company Ookla® announced that PLDT Home won over all major internet service providers in the Philippines for fifth consecutive year at the Ookla® Speedtest™ Awards Q1-Q2 2022.

Network: enabling PLDT’s digital transformation initiative

Underpinning these services are PLDT’s fixed and wireless networks. As of end-June, PLDT has expanded its fiber footprint to 837,900 kilometers, up 13% from end-2021, bringing much-anticipated fiber for the first time to islands like Bantayan and Camotes Islands in Cebu, Siargao and Socorro in Surigao del Norte, Dinagat Islands, Burias Island in Masbate, Lubang Island in Occidental Mindoro and Semirara Island in Antique.

Further boosting PLDT’s domestic fiber network is the US-Transpacific Jupiter cable system, which greatly boosts the telco’s extensive fiber network, providing greater capacity in multiple Terabits per second to customers as well as cable diversity to ensure ability to re-route traffic in the event of undersea cable cuts. Jupiter is anticipated to increase PLDT’s international capacity by 40 Terabit/s, to a total of about 60 Terabit/s to the US and Japan further establishing its lead, and ready to scale with the growing demands of digital services. These include the delivery of Cloud services, Fintech, and rich media content, which seamlessly complements PLDT’s existing fixed and mobile services. Market share of PLDT in terms of international cable capacity stands at more than 60%.

PLDT’s fiber infrastructure also supports Smart’s mobile network, which has around 77,100 total base stations, including 7,300 5G base stations, as of end-June. This puts Smart’s 3G, 4G/LTE and 5G population coverage at 97% and Smart 5G population coverage at 66%.

Following these continued network investments, Smart has also been cited by Ookla for delivering the country’s Best Mobile Coverage for the first half of 2022. This award comes at the heels of Smart sweeping the Ookla Speedtest Awards™ in all the quarters of 2021.

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