ABS-CBN net income flat at P2B, meets forecast
MANILA, Philippines–ABS-CBN Corp., the listed media holding company of the Lopez Group, said 2014 net income stayed flat at P2 billion, in line with its earlier forecast, while it projected an increase in capital spending to about P8.5 billion this year mainly for investments in digital television.
ABS-CBN said in a filing on Thursday that earnings last year matched the figure in 2013, despite election-related advertising booked during that period.
The company’s revenues hit P33.5 billion in 2014, up by 4.5 percent. Costs and expenses during the period rose 1.7 percent to P30.37 billion.
“I am confident that our company will deliver even stronger results this year. I am particularly excited about the prospects for our digital TV initiative—we already have over 200,000 ABS-CBN TVplus boxes in the market and should hit our initial target of one million set-up boxes by year-end,” Rolando Valdueza, ABS-CBN Group chief financial officer, said in a statement.
The company noted that its television and studio businesses, which provide the bulk of earnings, saw profit hit P2.98 billion, up 8. 8 percent.
That was offset by bigger losses in new businesses amounting to P1.22 billion. ABS-CBN said profits of its pay television service, mainly through Skycable, rose 10.1 percent to P272 million.
Aldrin M. Cerrado, the company’s Chief Financial Officer, credited gains in its TV and Studio businesses to the company’s “cost management initiatives,” adding that production costs fell 4.3 percent in 2014.
As noted, ABS-CBN is setting aside P8.5 billion for capital spending this year against P5.6 billion spent in 2014.
For 2015, the company said P4.1 billion would be spent on digital television and other services while P3.1 billion would go toward its pay television service. ABS-CBN said another P1.2 billion would be allotted for program rights.
ABS-CBN last month said that it planned to spend more for its digital television service, which it launched on Feb 11. The money would be used to partly finance the rollout of the service to new areas like Cagayan de Oro, Bacolod, Iloilo and Davao.
That comes on top of the P3 billion the company has spent so far to introduce the service to major markets like Metro Manila and nearby provinces, Pampanga, Pangasinan, Nueva Ecija, Tarlac, Benguet as well as Metro Cebu, he said.
