DITO eyes 15% telco mart share

DITO eyes 15% telco mart share | Daily Tribune

DITO Telecommunity Corp., a disruptor that ended the industry duopoly, is optimistic of obtaining at least a 15 percent market share within the year as it leverages on its extensive network expansion.

“We now have 10 million subscribers and that’s about 10 percent post-SIM registration, through the sheer strength of our network since we have limited investments on our commercial rollout. For us, our rightful share should be around 15 to 20 percent,” DITO president and chief executive officer Ernesto R. Alberto said in an interview with reporters last week.

“We aspire to achieve this by the end of the year since we are at 84 percent of the brand new network rollout,” he added.

Alberto attributed the company’s confidence in meeting its target to its on-track network and commercial rollout.

P25.7-B bond at risk

As part of the government’s regulatory requirements, DITO is expected to cover 84 percent of the Philippines this year with a minimum average speed of at least 55 Megabits per second, or Mbps.

If DITO fails to fulfill its commitments on time, the government will forfeit the P25.7 billion performance bond that DITO paid before construction activities.

“At 84 percent brand new network, we understand that it will take time and we need to do, a better job at branding and introducing ourselves to the market,” the DITO chief said.

For this year, DITO said capital spending will be tempered, which will clock in between P25 to P30 billion. Last year, the company spent P27 billion, far from the usual P50 billion capital spending during its early years.

“After we focus on the network rollout, it is now time to focus on monetization and commercialization of the network investment. Our plan now is to focus on gaining market share and focusing on commercial rollout and coming up with exciting new, differentiated products both on connectivity and broadband, mobile data, or fixed wireless,” Alberto said.

Recognizing the need for tighter competition to boost services to customers, DITO already ventured into the business-to-business segment of the telecommunications space with a new unit called DITO Business.

DITO Business will serve the underserved micro, small, and medium enterprise sectors, which will bank on the nearly one million active and operating enterprises, which will be mobilized to ensure that small other businesses will be supported through its innovative products.

Last year, DITO’s parent company, DITO CME, signed a $3.9 billion loan 15-year long-term project finance facility to bankroll its network expansion and improvement.