ABS-CBN Corp. said it allotted P6 billion to fund capital expenditures this year that include its digital transformation, broadband business expansion and program rights acquisition.
“If you look at our investments in the past, our capex is about 6 billion… this year is about the same. Capex allotted for digital will be higher this 2019,” said ABS-CBN chief financial officer Aldrin Cerrado.
“If you notice, there was a softening of TV advertising in the last two years although there was some improvements in the first quarter of the year, especially with the election season, but even without election, we want our business to grow not just on advertising but on consumer,” he said.
Cerrado added “most of the consumers of the Philippines have migrated from analog to digital and big digital companies are the one generating advertising revenues, while in the Philippines that may not be true yet, we want to be in the position.”
The company earlier reported a net income of P1.9 billion last year, down 40 percent from P3.16 billion in 2017, due to weak advertising sales.
Advertising revenues decreased 3.4 percent to P20.38 billion from P21.09 billion in 2017 on fewer advertising placements.
Consumer sales rose just 0.8 percent to P19.74 billion from P19.60 billion, mainly resulting from a 26-percent increase in ABS-CBN TVPlus boxes sold year-on-year.
Direct costs and expenses amounted to P37.94 billion in 2018, higher by 4.7 percent from P36.57 billion in 2017.
Production cost increased 4.3 percent to P12.34 billion in 2018 from P11.83 billion in 2017.
Global’s cable subscription revenues declined 7 percent.
ABS-CBN TVPlus contributed significant increase in revenues for the entire year with 2.5 million boxes sold, up 26.3 percent or 529,000 additional boxes sold in comparison to 2017.
Sky Cable’s revenue decreased 2.1 percent. The decline in Sky Cable’s performance was triggered by the drop in cable subscriber count by 69,000.
The subscriber count of Sky increased by 489,000, significantly attributable to direct-to-home subscribers.