PLDT Q3 2026 Earnings Date & Estimates

PLDT (NYSE:PHI) is a telecommunications and digital services provider based in the Philippines. Founded in 1928, the company operates an integrated network serving residential, business and government customers across the country.

Its services include mobile voice and data through its Smart brand, fixed-line telephony, home broadband and enterprise connectivity. Through its business units and subsidiaries, PLDT also provides information and communications technology services, cloud and data-center solutions, and other digital services.

PLDT serves customers throughout the Philippines and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol PHI, as well as on the Philippine Stock Exchange.

PLDT Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Negative Sentiment: For the first nine months of 2026, service revenue rose 1% to PHP 146.9 billion and EBITDA increased 1% to PHP 83.2 billion, with a 52% margin. However, Telco core income fell 6% to PHP 23.5 billion, consolidated core income declined 4% to PHP 24.4 billion, and reported net income was down 8% to PHP 21.7 billion, pressured by higher depreciation and foreign-exchange losses.
• Positive Sentiment: Enterprise and wireless showed improving momentum: Enterprise revenue grew 4%, while its corporate data, ICT, and enterprise wireless growth businesses rose 8%. Wireless consumer revenue returned to growth, up 1% for the nine months, as third-quarter gains, higher prepaid ARPU, and 5G upgrades supported results.
• Negative Sentiment: Home revenue declined 2%, reflecting earlier order-processing disruptions that reduced installations, as well as field-partner constraints and weather-related disruption. Management is rebuilding sales and installation capacity and expanding prepaid fiber distribution, but said it expects recovery in the first part of 2027.
• Positive Sentiment: Capital spending fell 15% to PHP 36.6 billion, and EBITDA less CapEx increased to PHP 46.6 billion; PLDT said it remains on track for positive full-year free cash flow. Net debt-to-EBITDA was 2.6 times, with management targeting 2.0 times over the medium term through cash generation and asset monetization.
• Positive Sentiment: Maya continued to scale, with deposits up 68% to PHP 95 billion, loans up 58% to about PHP 44 billion, and its gross NPL ratio improving to 4.9% from 6.1% at year-end. VITRO also reported growing data-center demand, though PLDT paused its planned REIT initiative amid higher interest rates and weaker market conditions.

Presentation

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

Good afternoon, everyone. I will take you through PLDT's financial and operating results for the first nine months of 2026. On the first slide, the gross service revenues grew 2% to PHP 161.2 billion. Net of interconnection costs, the service revenues rose 1% to PHP 146.9 billion. Cash operating expenses, subsidies, and provisions increased 1% despite inflationary pressures, and that helped EBITDA grow 1% to PHP 83.2 billion, with our margin holding steady at 52%. We also brought net financing costs down 2% to PHP 12.9 billion, despite a rising interest rate environment. This reflected our continued focus on managing PLDT's borrowing costs.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

These savings partly offset higher depreciation, which remained the main pressure on earnings. Telco Core, as you see below, the income was PHP 23.5 billion, down 6% year-on-year. At the core income line, Maya's higher contribution and gains from asset sales provided further support. This brought consolidated core income to PHP 24.4 billion, down 4%. Turning to the next slide, when we look more closely at the top line, the consolidated service revenues grew 1% to PHP 146.9 billion. Enterprise and mobile data sustained their growth, and this helped offset softer revenues from Home and the continued decline in legacy services. Excluding legacy services, revenues grew 2% to PHP 134.4 billion, and this accounted for 91% of our group's total service revenues.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

Within that, Enterprise remained as the largest contributor to growth. Revenues were up 4% to PHP 37.2 billion. Starting this quarter, we've expanded the growth business, as you see here in the red boxes in the middle, to include enterprise wireless alongside corporate data and ICT. Bear with us. Okay, so we'll continue now. This reflects the sustained growth in enterprise wireless over several quarters and gives a bigger picture of what's really driving the business. On this expanded basis, and you can see here on the right side, the enterprise businesses grew 8% year-over-year to PHP 31.2 billion and accounted for 84% of Enterprise's total revenues.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

In the wireless consumer, a stronger third quarter brought nine months revenue back into positive territory. It was up 1% to PHP 63.5 billion. In the mobile data and fixed wireless access, revenues grew 3% to PHP 58.7 billion, and this more than offset legacy declines within the wireless business. Our commercial and network initiatives are beginning to translate, and we can see better revenue performance despite pressure on consumer spending. On the Home side, revenues were down 2% to PHP 44.8 billion, with fiber down 1%.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

The lower installations earlier in this year, as we reported about the OSS, operational support system, transformation and challenges with it, and also additional field constraints in the third quarter, did weigh in on recurring revenues, and that was the reason for the 2% decline. Our priority is to rebuild the postpaid subscription and acquires to strengthen the service reliability, and this will support and retain our subscribers. Turning to wireless on the next slide. What we see here is that the wireless consumer returned to growth in the third quarter. Revenues and customer spending both improved after being broadly flat in the first half.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

The third quarter revenues increased 2% quarter-on-quarter and 3% year-on-year to PHP 21.5 billion. This was our strongest quarterly revenue so far this year. This brought the nine-month revenues to PHP 63.5 billion, up 1%, despite continued pressure on household spending as we are seeing the inflationary effects on the economy. Mobile data and fixed wireless access led the improvement, growing 3% from the second quarter. For the nine months, these revenues reached PHP 58.7 billion and accounted for 92% of the wireless consumer revenues. We are also seeing benefits commercially from our 5G upgrades.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

For example, these build on our existing infrastructure. We have improved the network experience, and we are encouraging customers to have greater usage. We have paired these improvements with marketing activities, which help consumers experience the upgraded network. For example, in the areas where we did upgrade our wireless network, revenues were higher, 6.1%, and traffic was 8.4% higher than before the rollouts. Our data traffic grew 14%. 5G-capable devices now represent 22% of individual devices.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

As customers adopt 5G and more and more use the data, our focus is on converting that demand into revenue growth. To get more specific on the next slide, in the last quarter, we talked about pricing and offer changes. We talked about more personalized customer engagement and 5G upgrades. Now we are seeing the benefits and the results of that work in the form of higher ARPU. Monthly net ARPU improved across both of our prepaid brands. From the second to the third quarters, our prepaid rose from PHP 119-PHP 125, while TNT rose from PHP 98-PHP 102. The mix of data usage is also improving.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

The traffic on bucket data offers grew 60% year-over-year in September, and this helped us convert more growth of usage into revenues. These are relevant offers, and they are strengthening our engagement. The 5G upgrades give our customers a better experience. Our focus now is to continue to capitalize and build on the momentum, monetizing on these gains and maintaining the quality of that experience, and extending the ARPU growth as we saw in the third quarter. For the Home business, the Home revenues here were PHP 44.8 billion for the first nine months, down 2% year-over-year. Fiber revenues, which accounted for 98% of the total revenues in Home, were down 1%, as mentioned earlier, some of the challenges.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

I will now elaborate more on that. The performance reflects the cumulative impact of lower prepaid installations earlier in the year. The order processing disruptions, there was the operational support system disruption that reduced our ability to convert orders into connected customers. We saw a return and stabilization by May in terms of the workflows, and actually the installations initially improved in the second quarter. However, the earlier shortfall continued to affect revenues because fewer households were contributing and converting monthly subscription income.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

That initial improvement was interrupted and affected in the third quarter. Higher operating costs pressured distribution partners. This includes the impact of their inflation and cost to run their businesses, and it affected their ability to sustain field deployment. We had, as a result, fewer active sales agents following the earlier installation delays. This reduced our selling coverage and new orders, and also impacted adversely by the August rains and flooding. Our response now is focused on rebuilding field capacity.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

It is making the distribution network more resilient, and we are reactivating sales agents and building our sales agents' base to restore coverage and order generation. We are also working with our distribution and installation partners to improve deployment. Postpaid, as you all know, remains the core of Home, and restoring the postpaid subscriber growth is our priority. We are focused on service reliability, faster repair turnaround to retain our existing customers, and both are critical to building the recurring revenue base. To complement this for our postpaid business, we are also going to expand our prepaid distribution.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

From November, we have brought in dedicated sales and installation partners, and the prepaid gives us another way to serve households, particularly in this current environment, who are looking for affordable fiber and greater flexibility over when and how much they spend. This dedicated partner model supports delivery costs, which are suited to prepaid price points. To summarize, we will continue to prioritize postpaid recovery as we develop this additional opportunity. This starts with rebuilding installations and improving retention. As subscriber additions recover, our priority on postpaid customers will solidify the Home space and sustain our revenue recovery.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

Now for Enterprise. Our Enterprise Group led the service revenue growth for the group in the first nine months of the year, and revenues increased 4% to PHP 37.2 billion. Growth was stronger across a number of areas. This includes corporate data, ICT, Enterprise Wireless. Together, these businesses grew 8% to PHP 31.2 billion, adding PHP 2.2 billion in revenues year-over-year. These growth businesses in Enterprise account for 84% of the total Enterprise revenues, and the growth more than offsets continued declines that we are seeing in some of the legacy services. Within ICT itself, revenues grew 6%, and this was led by our data center services, which grew 11% over that period.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

We achieved that growth against a higher comparison base that included large ticket deals such as the Unified 911 emergency system that was announced in the third quarter of last year. The team really pushed to grow despite a higher base in the third quarter. In terms of those growth engines, I will now highlight the areas where we are seeing the strongest. On the next slide. International connectivity, on the next slide, remained a key growth driver. PLDT Global grew 36%, and it was supported by demand from hyperscalers and carriers for international.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

For the Enterprise Wireless, revenues grew 16%. This was supported by business messaging and continued growth across Enterprise Postpaid, BizLoad, wireless broadband, and IoT. The demand extended across multiple industries and SMEs, and IoT adoption expanded into applications such as asset management, telemetry, and diagnostics. Our cloud service revenue grew 13%. ePLDT's infrastructure as a service revenue base increased 37%, and our data and AI solutions grew 19%. Private enterprises and government agencies modernized their IT systems, and they strengthened in order to strengthen their operational resilience. That is what drove the growth. Our data center service revenues rose 11%.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

This was supported by higher colocation and greater connectivity and revenues across enterprise, hyperscalers, and public sector customers. To summarize, our one enterprise approach lets us serve more than just an existing customer's need. For example, a carrier that buys international cable capacity from PLDT may also need space for equipment in the Philippines or connections to other networks. For us, we can bundle and we can provide those services together. On the data center business, VITRO, this is the Philippines market leader with 33% of live colocation IT capacity. Across our existing facilities and expansion phases, we now have approximately 63 MW of total capacity, and over half, 35 MW, is already contracted, and we expect the balance to be contracted over the next few months.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

At the end of September, we had about 34 MW of activated IT-ready capacity. This is across the nine VITRO data centers. We are seeing increased interest as government agencies prepare for the data residency requirements under their Executive Order No. 119. The conversations with hyperscalers are also picking up, and they are broadening from local cloud zones to now potentially much larger deployments in the Philippines. We are also now seeing significant interest from specialized providers of computing capacity for AI workloads.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

These are the neoclouds that you are hearing about, and we are seeing very strong interest from these customers. To summarize our scale for VITRO, the operating track record, having been in business for over 20 years as a data center, this positions us as a trusted partner to enterprises, the hyperscalers, and the government customers, and this puts us in a very strong position to capture this demand. On the expense side, I will now turn to the next slide, and this effectively summarizes it.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

You can see in the bottom that the percentage increase in total cash expenses for the year-to-date was 1%. This is despite inflationary pressures. The CapEx, sorry, the cash OpEx, the subsidies and provisions were contained, and this excludes manpower rightsizing program costs. The largest increase in the operating expenses was in repairs and maintenance, up PHP 1.1 billion. This includes some of the impact that we have seen inflation in from electricity costs and fuel costs and so forth. This is important spend because this helps keep our networks reliable, and it is important for our customers. It is one that, despite the challenges in the current market, it is needed to keep our quality of service in order.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

We also spent more on services tied to revenue-generating customer contracts. This is particularly in the enterprise businesses, which we were able to lock in multi-year contracts. As a result of that, those were some of the cost factors, and then these were offset by lower compensation and benefits, taxes, licenses, and other expenses to offset the increase. To summarize then the effect of this on the next slide, what we see in the consolidated EBITDA is that EBITDA increased steadily from the first half of 2024 through the first half of this year. For the first nine months, it rose 1% year-on-year to PHP 83.2 billion.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

The enterprise growth and improvement in wireless lifted the revenues, and we kept the cash costs growth in check. That, as you can see in the middle column in the red, helps keep our EBITDA margin at 52%, which is in line with some of the recent periods. On the Telco Core, the impact of higher EBITDA and lower financing costs help absorb some of the PHP 3.3 billion increase, as you see here, in the depreciation and amortization. Some of the earlier investments came into service, and so the depreciation was started to recognize. The Telco Core income for the nine months, therefore, was PHP 23.5 billion, down 6% year-over-year.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

For Maya, their contribution to PLDT's core income helped because their income and contribution rose 39% to PHP 838 million. That is for the attributable 37.7% stake that PLDT has in Maya. That stronger contribution and gains from asset sales also supported consolidated core income, which was a total of PHP 24.4 billion, down 4%. On the reported income, the net income was PHP 21.7 billion, down 8%. This was impacted by the weaker peso, which drove higher foreign exchange losses, and this was the main factor affecting the reported earnings. On the CapEx, as I turn to the next slide, CapEx fell 15% to PHP 36.6 billion for the first nine months.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

This is against PHP 43.0 billion in the prior year. The CapEx intensity also continued to trend lower, down to 23% from 27% a year ago. To be clear, we are focused on investment returns, ROIC, on our CapEx and our projects, and that includes adding mobile and fiber capacity where the demand supports it. It includes investing in submarine cables, and it also includes upgrading the network to improve our service quality. When we look at EBITDA less CapEx, this measure increased by PHP 7.1 billion to PHP 46.6 billion.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

For the full year, our CapEx guidance continues to remain in the mid-PHP 50 billion range. Turning to the balance sheet, what you see here on this next slide is that the net debt at the end of September stood at PHP 285.6 billion. It was down slightly from PHP 287.3 billion at the end of June, and the net debt to EBITDA multiple held at 2.6x. Our maturities, as evidenced on the chart on the top right, remain spread out, and what we can see here is that more than half of the debt is due after 2031. The average pre-tax interest costs actually fell over the nine-month period to 5.1%. It was at 5.4% at the end of last year.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

We remain investment grade, BBB by S&P and Baa2 by Moody's. We are also happy to report progress in our copper monetization. We did receive a first tranche of proceeds amounting to PHP 3.7 billion this quarter. As this project progresses, we expect to receive further tranches. To summarize, our free cash flow was positive for the first nine months, and we continue to target a positive result for the full year. Over the medium term, what we are working towards is a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 2.0x. A little bit on Maya, our digital ecosystem. Maya is, as you know, the leading digital banking, as well as a financial services platform. Maya's strength lies in its integrated ecosystem. It brings together payments, savings, and lending for consumers as well as businesses.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

As more of our customers transact on the platform, Maya gains deeper insights to better products as they develop them, it increases our engagement, and it builds scale efficiently. To give some additional color on the next slide, what you see here is that Maya maintained its leadership as the Philippines' leading digital bank and merchant acquirer, continues to build on it. In the third quarter, Maya sustained its profitability at the group level, and this was supported by growth across its banking and payments businesses. As of September, the deposits reached just under PHP 100 billion at PHP 95 billion, while outstanding loans grew to PHP 45 billion, reflecting sustained momentum across the platform.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

When we talk about the quality of the asset base, when we turn to the next slide, we look more closely at the banking performance. What you see here is that deposits grew 68% year-over-year to PHP 95 billion, and the outstanding loans, which are now at PHP 44 billion, had increased 58% over the prior period. Our loan-to-deposit ratio rose to 46%. It was at 43% at last year-end. The net interest margin for the first nine months is at 17.6%, so that's a very healthy margin for digital banks. Also importantly, the asset quality has improved, and the gross NPL ratio, as you see, has declined to 4.9% in September 2026. At the end of last year, it was 6.1%, and so that was an improvement in the non-performing loan ratio.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

Taken in the round, these results demonstrate Maya's continued ability to scale lending, but also maintaining sound credit fundamentals. Finally, on the next slide, let me just highlight some of their latest consumer initiatives. On the left, you see Maya's 1% cashback on eligible wallet card purchases, so it makes everyday transactions more rewarding for the customers. In the middle, what we also see is that the ID-less customer verification now uses the National ID eVerify, and it's also AI-powered automation. What this does is that it has improved the customer onboarding turnaround time by a factor of 84%. It makes the account verification much faster and easier, but it also maintains the high level of security and regulatory safeguards.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

Then finally, on the right, what we see is that Maya introduced the Maya Bukad Card. It's a special edition Visa wallet card. It was designed by a Filipino artist, and it marks a sustainability milestone because Maya has now completed its transition to have 100% recycled plastic for all newly produced wallet cards. Together, these initiatives strengthen Maya's customer experience. It reinforces Maya's ability to innovate and grow sustainably, and the business expanded its payment flexibility for consumers through Maya Mini Payments, which allows the credit card users to convert any purchase into monthly payments without requiring a merchant tie-up. A few words on sustainability.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

On the next slide, PLDT's sustainability progress is reflected in its performance across recognized external benchmarks. For example, our S&P Corporate Sustainability Assessment score rose from last year's 77% to a record high of 80%. In addition, PLDT maintained its leader status by the Global Child Forum benchmark for the fourth consecutive year, and it remains as the number two ranked globally in the matter of child rights. And for the second straight year, PLDT earned four Golden Arrows in the Institute of Corporate Directors Golden Arrow Awards, which recognizes publicly listed companies that demonstrate strong corporate governance practices based on the ASEAN Corporate Governance Scorecard.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

So continuing on to the next slide, PLDT continues to create value through action on its material sustainability topics, which our stakeholders have indicated what we should focus on. These include a broad range of initiatives on operating resource efficiency, particularly in water management, circularity, and waste management through our Be Kind program and our Recycle program. Also, capacity-building programs for our supply chain and efforts to keep our customers, including children, safe online. So to sum it up, in closing, we are heading into year-end with wireless back to growth and enterprise continuing to perform well.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

In Home, our priority is to get more households connected and to rebuild the postpaid subscriber base. Across the group, we will continue to manage our costs and capital spending closely as we work to sustain our positive free cash flow and to bring our leverage down over time. Thank you very much. Thanks for joining us today, and we are now happy to take your questions.

[Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations at PLDT]

Thank you so much, Stanley. Thank you to everyone as well who joined. Before we open the floor to your questions, please allow me to reintroduce our business leaders who are here in the room with us, who can help answer your questions. So we have PLDT Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Butch Jimenez, PLDT Chief Finance and Risk Advisor, Mr. Stanley Yang, PLDT Chief Legal Counsel, Attorney Joan de Venecia-Fabul, PLDT Corporate Secretary, Attorney MaVa.

[Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations at PLDT]

SVP and Head of Consumer Business, Mr. John Palanca, SVP and Head of Enterprise Business Group, Mr. Blums Pineda, Smart Communications Officer-in-Charge, Mr. Lloyd Manaloto, and ePLDT and VITRO President, Viboy Genuino. All right. So, some of you have sent in your questions in advance, so allow me to read some of those before I take some questions from the floor. Okay, this question is from Marky Carunungan.

[Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations at PLDT]

This first question is for our Home business. Okay. So from the previous call, management highlighted the recovery and installations and positive postpaid net additions beginning in May. However, Home revenue declined further in third quarter of 2026. What specifically delayed the anticipated recovery, and what installation run rate or subscriber additions are required for revenue to return to growth in 2027?

[John Palanca, SVP and Head of Consumer Business at PLDT]

Hi, Marky. Good to hear from you again. Good afternoon, and good afternoon to everyone on the call. Yes, the last analyst call, I believe, we did indicate that after the first five months, that we have overcome the major disruption resulting from the OSS migration. Since then, we have stabilized and optimized the system. Our challenge was that while we did recover volumes right after May, the volume or the scale of the recovery wasn't enough to cover the five to six-month shortfall that we have experienced. Being a postpaid business, a couple of things happened.

[John Palanca, SVP and Head of Consumer Business at PLDT]

One, revenues that we should have gained and subscribers that we should have gained from the first month of the year would have carried over for the entire 12 months and compounded the revenue. We are feeling the impact of that delay. Secondly, it takes about three to four months, as you know, for the revenue to sink in and show in the numbers from the time the subscriber is secured. However, that said, we are having to work on our entire partner ecosystem.

[John Palanca, SVP and Head of Consumer Business at PLDT]

When March hit, while we showed signs of recovery in June, in the long run, our partners, well, some of them were not able to sustain the economics of their business, coming from the increase, of course, in fuel and wages, but more importantly, in the price of materials. Fiber cables went up in price because of the war, and then, as you know, chipsets for our materials have also gone up. That said, we are working with them. We are working together because this is a symbiotic relationship between PLDT and our partners, and we do see a recovery in the first part of next year.

[Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations at PLDT]

Thank you so much, John.

[John Palanca, SVP and Head of Consumer Business at PLDT]

Thank you.

[Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations at PLDT]

All right. This next question is for wireless business. For wireless, also from Marky Carunungan, how much of the improvement came from structural price increases versus higher consumer usage and spending? Are October and November top-up trends also sustaining the momentum?

[Lloyd Manaloto, Officer-in-Charge at Smart Communications]

I think the factors are two things. One is obviously, we actually reviewed the pricing of our offers to better take advantage of the demand for subscribers for value. We saw certain SKUs, such as the Unli 5G, were actually, I think, ripe, because we've been rolling out our 5G network, and therefore, the user usage experience will actually now provide better value for the subscribers. That's one item that we saw. The other item that we also took advantage of is when we looked at competition, we realized they have a lot more bucket values.

[Lloyd Manaloto, Officer-in-Charge at Smart Communications]

When we reviewed our pricing structures, we basically tried to review and then attack those values and change our strategy from unlimited applications to bucket offers. The net effect of that two-pronged execution, wherein we did a very, I think, precision-guided tool of the CapEx for 5G, and then the timing of the pricing also happened more or less at the same time. Net effect on our top-ups for prepaid, probably saw a 3% uplift in our top-ups.

[Lloyd Manaloto, Officer-in-Charge at Smart Communications]

We actually executed these over a period of time, probably starting around April. Given the complexity of the channels for wireless, with all the channels, it actually took us a few months to execute. Nevertheless, I think the full execution happened around July. That's when we started to see the sustained impact on our revenues. This one has been sustained for at least four months. That's probably, I think this gives us a good base for monetization from here.

[Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations at PLDT]

Thank you so much, Lloyd. Looks like we have a question from the floor. Arthur Pineda of Citi. Let me go ahead and unmute you.

[Arthur Pineda, Analyst at Citi]

Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Yes, two questions on the financials and one on operations. Firstly, if I can just clarify what is driving the restatement on the prior year's performance. There seems to be more than 5% restatement for the nine months last year. I just want to understand that because it impacts the growth trajectories. Second question is with regard to the FX losses, which is significant at PHP 2.5 billion. I do recall in the past that the company used to place hedges against FX-denominated debt.

[Arthur Pineda, Analyst at Citi]

What is driving this volatility if the FX is actually hedged? And third question is with regard to the broadband business. Can we get color on what is driving the decline in the fixed broadband user base? You did mention that there is a revamp in the broadband distribution. How soon can we see the benefits of that in terms of net adds picking up?

[Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations at PLDT]

Okay. Thank you. Okay, so you have three questions, Arthur. So the first question is regarding the restatement. Stan, would you like to take that?

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

Sure. The restatement, that was done after the results, and what you see is that the restatements principally pertained to a hedge accounting element. That was, as we noted in the six-K disclosure, it was not material in terms of the cash flow impact, the core income, the performance metrics that the business would be measured by, or that dividends would be based on. And taken in the round, in terms of materiality, it was not material. There were some additional adjustments. These were part of the normal course in terms of the audit process, which individually were small and also taken together. Our position was that these items were not material taken into the full context. But yes, those were part of the restatement items that you saw.

[Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations at PLDT]

Right. The next question is on the FX losses this quarter, which amounted to PHP 2.5 billion. The question was, I guess, to the magnitude of it, as well as how our hedges have impacted this, as we do have some active hedges in play. How much was mitigated?

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

Yeah. The hedges were actually relatively small. It pertained to the U.S. dollar denominated for a face value up to around $300 million. As the currency weakened, that of course impacted our business. But the FX, what we are seeing also is that when we purchase equipment in U.S. dollars and so forth, that also has a negative in terms of the amount of the FX when we purchase it. These are some of the elements that come into our business as we looked at it. But in terms of the debt, though, the bulk of it, approximately 85%, is based on Philippine pesos, 86% is in pesos, not in U.S. dollars.

[Arthur Pineda, Analyst at Citi]

Sorry, the FX loss is mainly because of the equipment purchase?

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

Also the liability related to—

[Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations at PLDT]

The revaluation.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

Yeah, the revaluations.

[Arthur Pineda, Analyst at Citi]

Sorry, the line was a bit spotty. Could you mind just repeating that? Sorry, I—

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

Leo Posadas, our Treasurer, will answer this.

[Leo Posadas, Treasurer at PLDT]

Yeah. In addition to what Stanley was saying, we actually had call spreads where the market, because of the Middle East war, actually already went beyond the upper strike level of the call spread. So we unwound those hedges, and as a result of unwinding those hedges, we suffered an FX loss to that. Yeah, essentially that is it. That is also part of the FX loss that was there. While we realized some monetary gains, we got some cash for unwinding these hedges, in terms of the mark-to-market, but the cash that we received with our counterparties when we unwound was not enough to cover for the mark-to-market negative.

[Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations at PLDT]

Thank you, Leo. The third question is regarding the fixed broadband subscriber base.

[John Palanca, SVP and Head of Consumer Business at PLDT]

Hi, Arthur. Good afternoon. So thank you for that. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to give some color. The fixed broadband space today is a, well, industry growth is very low. It is 1%, so everybody was challenged. Converge actually reported flat in their fixed broadband. I am 2% behind. And same for Globe, of course, was growing because of the prepaid business that we decided to venture on. That given, we have looked at protecting our postpaid base. I think that was the first order of business.

[John Palanca, SVP and Head of Consumer Business at PLDT]

As soon as we saw that there was some economizing of the households in their telco spending, especially in the fixed broadband where they have a high commitment per month, we immediately looked into how to add more value and protect our postpaid base. This is why you will see that our churn rate in the postpaid space is quite low. It is still the best in the industry. We still have the largest customer base in our pool. Holds above the 1,350 level. So we are steady on the postpaid base. A couple of things happened too while we were executing the transition.

[John Palanca, SVP and Head of Consumer Business at PLDT]

Of course, I mentioned earlier that there were challenges to the partners, but we are building our agent, our channel base now more effectively. We have decided to localize a lot of them, and we are entering the prepaid space just to make sure that we do not leave anyone behind. Even the prepaid customers we see have a change in behavior where we see higher loading rates, meaning quality subscribers have economized and downsized, but they have not lost their payment behavior, and these are the customers we appreciate.

[John Palanca, SVP and Head of Consumer Business at PLDT]

We are building that. We haven't lost much from the beginning of the year. Our subscriber count, I think for the quarter is about -4,000. If I could get a solid 100,000 subs, which I can do quickly, especially when we launch this new partner with prepaid, plus with the offers that we're launching now, which would show recovery. What we're doing in the last quarter is pumping up acquisition efforts and our retention efforts so we can start strong in 2027. In the meantime, while the industry is reeling from a low growth, we are protecting our profitability, which is the most important, I guess, KPI for the business is to ensure that we keep the profitability up and reduce costs as much as we can. Thank you.

[Arthur Pineda, Analyst at Citi]

Thank you.

[Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations at PLDT]

Any other follow-up questions, Arthur?

[Arthur Pineda, Analyst at Citi]

All clear. Thank you.

[Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations at PLDT]

All right. Thank you so much. All right. We have some questions that came in from John Te of UBS. This first question is for our wireless business. Can you elaborate on the price increases implemented in the third quarter? At what price points and are these significant to the overall portfolio? What is the response of competitors?

[Lloyd Manaloto, Officer-in-Charge at Smart Communications]

Right. I kind of touched on it earlier in my previous answer to Marky, but offhand, the price increases, the adjustments actually were done not in the third quarter, but they were actually done around the second quarter. Because it takes time to actually execute multiple SKUs across multiple channels, it roughly took us about the second quarter to fully implement. In the third quarter, we actually saw the full impact of those adjustments. There are actually two main, two big strategies in that one. The first one is actually on the 5G offers. We were pairing it with our network rollouts on 5G, and therefore, that one was an easy, I think, an easy product family that we could actually execute a price of value increase.

[Lloyd Manaloto, Officer-in-Charge at Smart Communications]

One example of which was the PHP 35 one-day Unli, sorry, the PHP 30 one-day Unli, which we up-priced to PHP 35. That was a straight-up offer. That one, more or less, is aligned with our rollouts. The other pricing, the other offers that we actually monetized were the PHP 99 and up, which are the PHP 99 would probably, the PHP 99 probably the bulk of the SKUs. What we did there was we basically restructured those offers so that they became, we changed the Unli Apps components to bucket data. Because they're now bucket data, that gave us an opportunity to monetize better, because then once subscribers use it up, they can actually now buy it more.

[Lloyd Manaloto, Officer-in-Charge at Smart Communications]

That one was one component. Another component we did was we actually found a way to create a pricing ladder. Before we had a price ladder from PHP 99, the next price point was probably close to PHP 149, which is probably way too high. We created another price ladder around PHP 110. That one created an easy flow for subscribers with some money to actually buy a better value at PHP 110. All in all, those pricing mechanism, I would say adjustments and mechanisms for our tools to actually start to monetize better with our mobile network. At the same time, it took advantage of our targeted 5G rollouts because the subscribers felt better value, because they experienced a better network, and therefore, it was easy for them to actually relate a better value with the service.

[Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations at PLDT]

Thank you so much, Lloyd.

[Lloyd Manaloto, Officer-in-Charge at Smart Communications]

Thank you.

[Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations at PLDT]

Okay, this next question is for Home. What was postpaid churn during the quarter, John? That was 1.65%, as indicated in the slides earlier. You do have a follow-up question on the 152,000 churned accounts in the third quarter. John, this is for you. How do you think about the How did the 152,000 churned prepaid accounts in 3Q affect how you think about prepaid expansion?

[John Palanca, SVP and Head of Consumer Business at PLDT]

Is this in the long term or?

[Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations at PLDT]

In the long term.

[John Palanca, SVP and Head of Consumer Business at PLDT]

Who is asking the question?

[Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations at PLDT]

This is John Te from UBS.

[John Palanca, SVP and Head of Consumer Business at PLDT]

John Te. Hi, John Te. How are you? Thank you for the question. As a background, we started working on a prepaid offer late last year, beginning of this year. We were testing the stickiness of our products by offering it first to select qualified customers who were not able to pay their bills. This was a service to them if they had temporary financial difficulties in paying or settling their bill, and we did not want them to not have service. We changed their service to a prepaid one automatically. This group of customers who basically were activated under the prepaid service, coming from a postpaid service, were given a chance to top up and use our service, even if they have not settled their accounts.

[John Palanca, SVP and Head of Consumer Business at PLDT]

Now, today, in November, more than six months later, we have looked into these accounts and see the profile of who actually utilized the service and who did not load. All we did was to simply deactivate and free up the ports of those who did not top up and perhaps did not even settle their payment, so we could use those facilities for customers who may require services in their areas. The other 17,000 was a result also of our service effort during the typhoons in late 2025. If you recall, in the second half of 2025, unlike the second half of 2026, we had a lot of super typhoons, one after the other.

[John Palanca, SVP and Head of Consumer Business at PLDT]

What we did for those customers who were affected by major cable disruption resulting from the winds and the floods and the flooded bonus, we did not terminate their service. We actually extended it until we can reconnect them and get them back into service. To alleviate the inflation of the revenues by not terminating it, we simply gave them an MSF holiday and to make sure we didn't book any revenues from this. The 17,000 was part of that same effort. This is part of those that we were not able to save, actually. But we did that effort actually affected 240,000 subscribers, and 170,000 customers stayed with us. We're using the same exercise. This 17,000 is the tail end of the 70,000 that did not renew or we were not able to. Thank you.

[Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations at PLDT]

Thank you so much, John. All right. Number of questions that are quite common across different folks in the call with us. Much of this is in regards to our asset monetization efforts. First question from multiple attendees is regarding the VITRO REIT IPO, and any comment on the timing of that. So we have Viboy here with President of PLDT and VITRO, if you'd like to comment, or Stan? Yeah.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

Sure. On the timing of the VITRO REIT, what we have already announced is that the timetable, which initially we were hoping for the latter part of this year, but now we're looking because of also the market conditions, as you've seen, the benchmark rates have been increasing, inflation is high, interest rates are going up. For a REIT, that's directly tied to the dividend yield, and that's what investors would be seeking. As that continues to go up, as the seller here, as bringing investors, that's less attractive for us.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

We've decided to pause that initiative. We will take stock. But in the meantime, the business continues to grow and grow very quickly. Maybe I can let Viboy talk about what the initiatives are and what we're seeing. But as I mentioned earlier, the 11% growth that we saw on the top line for the data center business is one that this is one of our fastest growing areas, and we want to certainly capitalize it based on the demand. So, Viboy?

[Viboy Genuino, President at ePLDT and VITRO]

Yes. Thank you, Stan. Yes, so based on the slides presented by Stan earlier, we're going to end up the year with around 44 MW of available capacity. We expect that to grow to over 60 MW by the middle of next year. A lot of it is coming from enterprise transformational workloads that we are seeing. A lot of interest from the public sector, especially with the advent of Executive Order No. 119.

[Viboy Genuino, President at ePLDT and VITRO]

Because of that, increased interest from hyperscalers in the region who want to expand their zones or their regional presence in country. We have also been seeing a lot of interest from neocloud operators who are setting up capacity for frontier AI models based in the U.S. and China. I think, all told, it's a good sign that all of these things are happening at the same time and bodes well that we have the capacity to be able to accommodate all of these requirements coming in the next few months.

[Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations at PLDT]

Thank you so much, Stan and Viboy. Also in regards to asset monetization, a common question amongst multiple attendees is in regards to our tower sales and what we expect for the remainder of the year.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

Sure. I can cover that. The tower sales, as you know, we had already sold many of them, over 7,000 as part of two tranches. Currently, we have also been approached by a number of investors who are interested in towers. We are looking at selling a small amount in the magnitude of 150-200 towers that for us are going to be available.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

We have asked bidders to submit their proposals, and we are in discussions with them actively. The timing of this, which we believe could raise in the PHP 2 billion-roughly neighborhood in terms of the proceeds. We think that would be when it closes a Q1 closing. We are progressing on those. We will, of course, report back as and when there is additional progress and updates, but that is the plan for the towers.

[Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations at PLDT]

Thank you. Last one, asset monetization on the copper sale. You mentioned that we received PHP 3.7 billion as the first tranche of proceeds this quarter. What can we expect moving forward?

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

Sure. There is an additional amount that will come in that will be based on some of the agreements with the purchaser, and that will be done in tranches. As some of the copper is made available to the purchaser, then as that gets extracted and so forth, then we would expect that going forward beyond this initial amount that I mentioned earlier, that additional payments would be made in due course, perhaps next year and possibly into the following year. For us, that is helpful from a monetization perspective. As mentioned, our key goals really is to look at delevering the business and also building up on the free cash flows. This would certainly help us in that regard.

[Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations at PLDT]

Thank you, Stan. All right, this next question is from Michael Fernandez of Metrobank. Any guidance on CapEx for 2027 and 2028? How much do you expect to be funded by debt?

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

Yeah. For the CapEx, I mean, this year, I mentioned it's already going to be in the mid-50s as far as the CapEx for 2026. For next year, what we would like to do is, in terms of our discipline, is to be lower than that level. It may not be lower by a whole lot, but we want it lower for sure. And it's that discipline that we're targeting when we spend the CapEx, the greater scrutiny in terms of the return on the capital, and the benefits that we're going to get in terms of strategic areas, the growth and the revenues, and also the attributable core income that we can benefit from that CapEx spend. These benchmarks, which are guiding us in terms of the allocation, will be across the board.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

It still has to fortify the network, it has to fortify the businesses, supporting the wireless and Home as the key drivers, but also on the enterprise side, including the data centers. We need to make sure that our businesses and the customer service and the experience is kept, but on a tighter amount, then we're being much more focused and targeted. Some of that funding will be taken by debt, but also as the free cash flows continue to build, some of that will be able to be channeled into the CapEx.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

As we have initiatives like, for instance, the VITRO REIT, if that brings in significant cash to the business, some of that will be used to reduce the debt, but then other parts will be used to fund additional growth, right? As Viboy had just mentioned, data centers, we expect a lot of opportunities and growth, which are tied to revenues and profits for us in the medium to long term. We want to make sure that there's the capital, and we will recycle it in order to support this growth.

[Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations at PLDT]

Thank you, Stan. All right, this last question is from Mika Ng of Papa Securities. This is in regards to Maya. Given the challenging macro environment, how are you seeing asset quality, loan staging, and provisioning trends heading into the coming quarters? Are you anticipating any material increase in credit costs or additional provisions?

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

Sure. On Maya, as I mentioned earlier, Maya continues to remain profitable, and it's growing. As of September, the deposits I mentioned have reached PHP 95 billion, up 68%, and the loans at PHP 44 billion. That was up very high as well, 58%. In terms of the contribution, Maya's contribution to PLDT's Telco Core income for the first nine months actually grew. It grew 39%, so it was at PHP 838 million. This is the attributable 37.7% share. The growth was actually about PHP 200 million. That continues to reflect Maya's profitability and growth. With respect to the performance and the asset quality, the gross NPLs, as I mentioned, actually reduced, and so that was the 4.9% level.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

When it comes to our monitoring, Maya and their management continue to keep a very close tab. Given the macro challenges that we're seeing, we're just evaluating, and we believe that the business and the NPL ratios are sustainable. Maya has not, at this point, observed any unusual trends in delinquency or early-stage arrears, and the NPLs continue to remain on track.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

You have to remember that some of the initial loans, credit cards, and so forth, you'll see higher levels of NPL, but then as that quality builds and more data is in the system and customers mature, then you're going to see that improve. Over the past few years, you've seen those levels of delinquencies come down. That results in the interest margin. For the first nine months of the year, that was at 17.6%, and so that continues to remain very healthy for the business.

[Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations at PLDT]

Thank you. All right, we're just about at the end of the meeting. There is one more question on the queue from Michael Fernandez as well. This is in regards to our expected debt levels and where we expect that to trend in the coming years or periods.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

I mean, at the moment, what you've seen in the last few quarters this year is that the main metric, which is net debt to EBITDA, has kept steady at about 2.6x. As our EBITDA grows steadily, that net debt has held in check. For us, ideally, what we'd like to do is get down to 2.0x. I think we just want some prudence. We want to make sure that the level, and we have a BBB rating from S&P, and we have a Baa2 with Moody's. We want to make sure that these levels are maintained and that our quality on the balance sheet and credit side continue to hold.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

We do want to see that come down. We are going to do that by the free cash flow generation, plus some of the asset sales that were discussed earlier. If we can do that and build the business, although, admittedly, this period is, for us, the inflation, what you've seen in terms of the business, that isn't impacting the business, but we believe that with that prudence, we can, over time, improve that and bring it down to the two level.

[Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations at PLDT]

Okay, great. Thank you so much, and thank you to everybody who submitted your questions. That brings us to the end of this briefing. Thank you so much for your time and continued support of PLDT, and we look forward to our next update with you sometime in March next year. Until then, we'll talk to you soon. All right. Bye-bye.

[Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor at PLDT]

Thank you.

Participants

Executives

• Stanley Yang, Chief Finance and Risk Advisor
• Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations
• John Palanca, SVP and Head of Consumer Business
• Leo Posadas, Treasurer
• Viboy Genuino, President

Analysts

• Lloyd Manaloto, Officer-in-Charge at Smart Communications
• Arthur Pineda, Analyst at Citi