Meralco 9-mo core net income reaches P16.7B

Manila Electric Co. yesterday reported a 9-percent year-on-year increase in consolidated core net income for the first nine months of 2018, with the rise in consumer demand dampened by bad weather and cooler temperatures especially in the third quarter.

Meralco chief finance officer Betty Siy-Yap said in a press briefing the utility giant’s unaudited consolidated core net income for the period reached P16.7 billion from about P15.4 billion in 2017.

Siy-Yap said consolidated revenues jumped by 11 percent to P227.4 billion this year, amid a 5-percent jump in the volume of energy sold which reached 32,921 gigawatt-hours.

Growth in consolidated Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) was pegged at one percent to P6.1 billion.

Oscar S. Reyes, Meralco president and chief executive, described the company’s operational performance as “reasonably favorable.”

Electricity sales continued to grow across all customer categories—7 percent for industrial, 4.5 percent for commercial, and 3 percent for residential.

Reyes said residential sales growth was dampened due to the devastation brought by Typhoon “Ompong” and monsoon rains, as well as economic factors affecting customers, alluding to rising inflation.

Meralco chair Manuel V. Pangilinan said the firm’s performance in the third quarter, which historically has the strongest sales volumes in any year, “managed to remain relatively good, albeit affected by adverse macroeconomic factors, weather disturbances.”

In the third quarter of this year alone, Meralco sales grew by 2 percent only compared to the same period in 2017.

“We remain vigilant of our way forward given the challenges in the market,” Pangilinan said. “Nevertheless, we look forward to ending 2018 with financial results marginally above 2017.”