Asian crisis sharpens PLDT's strategic focus

June 30, 1999 PSE CIRCULAR FOR BROKERS NO. 1562-99 Asian crisis sharpens PLDT's strategic focus The Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company said in its annual stockholders' meeting that while the Asian financial crisis caused its net income to drop to 86% last year, the upside is that it sharpened the company's strategic focus. According to PLDT president and CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan, the country's leading carrier is now more committed that ever to strengthening its core telephone business by further enhancing its facilities and removing cross-subsidies. Pangilinan reported that even as high disconnection rates spawned a slowdown in PLDT's network expansion, it persisted with network digitalization, hitting 90 percent completion well on its way to full digitalization next year. It also activated two new digital exchanges and completed the country's first and only all-fiber optic backbone. Its third international gateway went on stream last year, and two 20-gigabit fiber optic cables were landed in its cable station in Nasugbu, Batangas as part of the Southeast Asia Middle East-Western Europe No. 3 cable and the Guam Philippines Cable. LexLib Meanwhile, the company started to implement its rate rebalancing program to lessen its dependence on international toll revenues for network expansion. Pangilinan also said that PLDT upgraded its system and capabilities last year to enhance its customer service. As a results, employee productivity rose 200%, approaching global standards, and nearly 15,000 service applications were processed and served in only two months. The first phase of the company's Y2K programmes also completed last year. The entry of the First Pacific Group into PLDT last year assumes the company of being in a position "to take the most advantage of the opportunities in Philippine telecommunications," said Pangilinan "On one end, (PLDT) will load the drive raise telephone density levels across the country. On the other end, PLDT will continue to invest in technologies that will enable it to harness the full potential of telecommunications and computer convergence," he added.