Philippine telecom giant PLDT bulks up data centers
Date:
August 2, 2016
MANILA — Philippine telecommunications company PLDT plans to open two more data centers this year, looking to tap growing corporate demand for cloud-computing and data-management services.
By doing so, the company is looking to strengthen its enterprise business, the growth of which has offset weakness in other business segments, including consumer and traditional long distance telephone services.
On Thursday, the company opened its seventh data center at a cost of nearly 4 billion pesos ($85 million), according Eric Alberto, head of PLDT’s enterprise business.
The five-story building, touted by PLDT as earthquake-proof, sits on a 2-hectare site near the Makati City business district in Metro Manila. It has capacity of 3,600 racks.
Alberto said PLDT will open another facility in Clark, the former U.S. military base located 70km north of Manila, by September. It will also build a small facility in the southern city of Davao, which has been the focus of keen investment interest since its former mayor, Rodrigo Duterte, was elected president in May.
The three facilities will bring PLDT’s capacity to 8,300 racks, Alberto said. The company hopes to open more data centers or expand existing ones to bring the capacity to around 10,000 racks next year, he said. By that time, PLDT will have spent 10 billion pesos since it began bolstering its data center business in 2012.
PLDT counts banks, business process outsourcing companies, and government agencies as its main clients. Its booming enterprise business has helped offset weakness in the company’s consumer segment, which has lost customers to the Ayala Corp.-led Globe Telecom.
PLDT’s first-quarter service revenue was flat, at 40.6 billion pesos. Revenue for the enterprise business rose 10% to 7.6 billion pesos, but the consumer segment saw just 1% growth to 26.6 billion pesos, and revenue for the international carrier business fell 12% to 6.3 billion pesos
“We are betting that our investment in digitization of the marketplace will bring a whole new world of opportunities,” Alberto said.
Shares in PLDT dropped 0.5% Thursday, compared with the 0.9% slide in Manila’s benchmark index.
Source: http://goo.gl/inIdTg
