The Philippines’ largest fully integrated telco PLDT plans to surpass its record growth in its Home business, targeting wider penetration in Luzon and reaching new areas for growth in Visayas and Mindanao.
“The Group is anticipating PLDT Home to grow its revenues at an accelerated pace as it adds more fiber customers, with the market still underpenetrated at approximately 20%, compared with up to 50% penetration in the Asian region,” said PLDT and Smart President and CEO Alfredo S. Panlilio. “We have high expectations that the PLDT Home business will continue its strong performance given the latent demand, as well as our improved service metrics and the upcoming conclusion of our copper migration campaign.”
For 2021, PLDT Home reported a record-high 1.13 million new fiber subscribers, exceeding its original target of 1 million, bringing PLDT’s total fixed broadband customers to nearly 3 million. “This exceptional performance sets the foundation for 2022 and beyond as we continue to build on our strengths as an integrated telco and our commitment to serve our customers in the best way possible,” added Panlilio.
The Group has identified imperatives to reach 2022 targets, with Home expected to ramp up installations to serve untapped markets, fast-track completion of migration for the remaining copper customers to fiber, and continuously improve in terms of operations using automation.
PLDT Home averaged 107,000 installations per month in the fourth quarter, slightly lower than the third quarter due to Odette’s impact and seasonal slowdown. However, it averaged 35,000 monthly copper-to-fiber migrations for the quarter, the highest among all quarters, and adding 326,000 net of fiber installs.
This growth is further strengthened with the PLDT group’s aggressive roll out of its fiber network, which was at 743,700 kilometers as of end-December 2021.