DITO set to launch postpaid, enterprise products

DITO Telecommunity Corp. is set to launch postpaid and enterprise product offerings by June this year, company officials said on Thursday.

“In June, we are launching our postpaid plans. That’s going to affect this significantly. In June, we are going to enter the enterprise business. We will be offering things to companies, small enterprises — so this P7.2 billion that’s nothing to what’s coming,” DITO Chief Administrative Officer Adel A. Tamano said.

“You haven’t seen anything yet. Last year, we earned P7.2 billion — that’s just our prepaid,” Mr. Tamano said at a media briefing.

In entering the postpaid and enterprise market, one of the telco’s “edge” will be its affordability, DITO Chief Technology Officer Rodolfo D. Santiago said.

“There is a lot of technology that we are using to help provide customers value for money. We are expecting that potential clients see us as much more reliable and cheaper,” Mr. Santiago said, citing the company’s cloud software.

DITO has an auditing commitment to allot P27 billion for capital expenditure (capex) this year to increase its coverage. This would bring the company’s cumulative capex under its commitment to the government to P230 billion by the end of the year.

“Our committed capex is P27 billion. To be very accurate, it may increase or decrease based on the need of the network. My sense is we will reach that,” Mr. Tamano said.

According to Mr. Santiago, the company is approaching 77% to 78% coverage, which is close to the target for its technical audit that will happen on July 8.

“Our target for our fourth technical audit that will happen on July 8 is 80% coverage. We’re at around 77%-78% so we just need 2%,” he added.

In 2022, the telco’s parent firm DITO CME Holdings Corp. booked a threefold increase in revenues from contracts with customers to P7.28 billion from P2.19 billion in the previous year.

DITO CME’s net loss last year widened to P11.24 billion from P9.67 billion in 2021.— Justine Irish D. Tabile