Broadcast company ABS-CBN Corp. said Monday net income jumped 39 percent in 2016 from a year ago, boosted by higher advertising revenues.
The country’s leading media and entertainment company said it posted a net income of P3.5 billon last year, up from P2.5 billion in 2015.
“We are very pleased to have exceeded our earnings guidance for 2016,” ABS-CBN chief financial officer Aldrin Cerrado said.
It also represented the top end of the company’s profit guidance of P3.2 billion to P3.5 billon.
ABS-CBN said revenues rose 9 percent last year to P41.6 billion from P38.3 billon in 2015.
“Full-year growth in advertising revenues, boosted by election-related spending, was about 11 percent,” Cerrado said.
Advertising revenues increased 15 percent year-on-year to P27.4 billon in 2016. Election-related spending reached P2.8 billion last year, up from P2.4 billion in 2010, when the previous presidential election was held.
ABS-CBN adopted the cost per individual rating point pricing scheme in 2015, which rewarded the company an increase in ratings. Last year marked the scheme’s first full year of implementation.
“Our continued strong leadership in national audience share was also a key contributor to our record performance because improved ratings now translate to increased revenues,” said Cerrado.
“We have also been able to manage our costs and expenses efficiently,” he said.
Cost and expenses went up 6 percent last year.
ABS-CBN said it was successful in efforts to control production costs and reduce expenses by about 4 percent on a per hour basis compared to 2015.
The company’s rollout of its digital terrestrial television also helped boost audience share with over 2.3 million boxes sold as of end-December 2016.
ABS-CBN Group chief finance officer Ron Valdueza said: “We are also extremely happy with the performance of our subsidiaries last year. “
“The healthy growth in our advertising revenues coupled with the accomplishments of our different business units enabled us to deliver record earnings performance for ABS-CBN,” Valdueza said.
Star Cinema generated over P2.9 billion in ticket sales both here and abroad.
SkyCable saw an 8-percent growth in revenues, driven by the introduction of SkyDirect, its newly launched direct-to-home pay TV offering and the continued sharp increase in broadband subscriber base.
The company had over 112,000 SkyDirect subscribers and more than 200,000 broadband subscribers, bringing Sky’s total subscriber base to over one million.
Kidzania, the company’s educational theme park, attracted over 360,000 visitors in 2016, while TV shopping channel O Shopping generated over P820 million in sales.