DITO CME losses ballooned in Q1
MANILA, Philippines — The parent firm of DITO Telecommunity widened its net losses by 12 times in the first quarter due to higher costs and expenses, along with foreign currency exchange losses, but service revenues showed growth because of increasing demand for mobile data.
DITO CME Holdings Corp., in a financial disclosure on Thursday, reported that its net losses grew to P4.11 billion in the first quarter from P336.67 million a year ago.
The bottom line was dragged by expenses growing by 31 percent to P7.04 billion due to costlier general, selling, and administrative costs, depreciation, and amortization. Foreign currency exchange losses amounted to P2.18 billion, a reversal of the P4.32 billion gain posted a year ago.
Still, revenues surged by 62 percent to P3.79 billion, the bulk of which was contributed by the mobile business at P3.25 billion.
Mobile data revenues for the period improved by 39 percent to P2.55 billion from P1.84 billion a year ago, showing increasing demand for internet connectivity.
The telco player passed its fourth technical audit last year—its commitment to the government after securing the franchise to operate in 2019.
READ: Despite challenges, DITO Tel passes 4th audit
The review showed that it had minimum average broadband speeds of 74.97 Mbps (megabits per second) for 4G and 639.32 Mbps for 5G—beyond the minimum 55 Mbps requirement. DITO Tel also registered a population coverage of 80.65 percent, surpassing the 80.01 percent commitment.
Loan agreement
Last year, the company secured a 15-year loan agreement with several creditors amounting to $3.9 billion or about P224.48 billion in total.
It drew P170.61 billion from the loan facilities last year to repay obligations and network construction-related payables.
The company also raised P5.5 billion through private placements from third-party investors last year to fund its telco operations.
DITO CME said it would continue to “ramp up its commercial operations through targeted subscriber acquisition and promotional activities aimed at increasing revenue and cash inflow.”
Earlier this year, DITO Tel inked a master facilities provisioning agreement with Converge ICT Solutions Inc. The deal allows the parties to share terrestrial and submarine fiber optic cable assets to enhance network redundancy.
