ABS-CBN Corp. of the Lopez Group said net income fell sharply in the first quarter of the year, dragged down by weak advertising sales due to the lack of election-related advertisements.
The country’s largest media and entertainment company reported a net profit of P314 million in the January-to-March period, down by 59 percent from last year’s P761 million.
ABS-CBN generated consolidated revenues of P9.6 billion from advertising and consumer sales, 3.2 percent lower from P9.89 billion last year.
Advertising revenues declined 13.4 percent to P4.84 billion from P5.58 billion due to the absence of election-related advertising placements.
Excluding election related placements, advertising revenue for 2017 is up 1 percent year-on-year.
Consumer sales increased 10 percent to P4.7 billion from P4.30 billion mainly resulting from the sale of ABS-CBN TVPlus and higher revenue from Sky Cable’s broadband business.
Sky Cable Inc.’s revenue rose 11 percent year-on-year due to an increase in the broadband and direct-to-home subscriber count by 156,000 and 51,000, respectively. Subscriber count of Sky increased by 189,000, moving up to 1 million subscribers at end-March.
ABS-CBN TVPlus contributed a significant increase in revenues during the first quarter with a total of 482,766 boxes sold, up 150 percent from almost 300,000 additional boxes sold on year.
ABS-CBN mobile generated an additional 160,000 subscribers, increasing its total subscribers to over one million at end-March, while O-shopping posted P241 million in revenues, 15 percent higher than in the first quarter of 2016.
The company’s costs and expenses amounted to P9.17 billion in the first quarter, up by 3.4 percent from P8.86 billion in the same period last year.
ABS-CBN’s capital expenditures and program rights acquisitions amounted to P1.7 billion at end-March.
The company has programmed P8 billion in capex this year to expand its cable, broadband and digital infrastructure.