ABS-CBN income up 25% to P2.55B in ’15

ABS-CBN CORP., the media holding company of the Lopez Group, said earnings rose last year on the back of growth incore television advertising revenues and other businesses.

In a statement issued on Friday, ABS-CBN said net income in 2015 hit P2.55 billion, up 25 percent over the same period in 2014. It said revenues ended at P38.28 billion, up 14 percent.

ABS-CBN chief financial officer Aldrin Cerrado said the  2015 earnings were above the company’s full-year target of P2.4 billion.

“Revenues from our TV and studio business grew by over 11 percent compared to the previous year,” he said. EBITDA and net income margins for this segment improved to 25.9 percent and 13.9 percent, respectively.

“We received a further boost in revenues after we adopted a new pricing scheme in May of last year—from a fixed cost per spot to a cost per individual rating point system,” he added.

Also bolstering earnings were popular television programs launched in 2015, he said. In 2015, ABS-CBN claimed a lead in national televisions ratings. Its chief rival, GMA Network Inc., also made a similar claim.

ABS-CBN’s total assets rose to P70.42 billion from P67.24 billion in the previous year, while its equity base rose to P28.72 billion from P26.88 billion in 2014, the statement showed.

“We are confident that our company would deliver even stronger results this year. Our digital TV initiative has done very well, recently breaching the one million mark in terms of sales of ABS-CBN TVplus boxes,” Ron Valdueza, ABS-CBN Group CFO, said in the same statement.

During this period, he said SkyCable increased its broadband subscriber count by over 40 percent and has maintained a “healthy” average revenue per user of about P1,100.

“It recently obtained a license to operate direct-to-home service, which would expand its reach around the country. Sky was expected to roll out its DTH service within the year,” Valdueza added.