PHI

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations here at PLDT, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to our full year financial and operating results briefing. Joining us today to share insights into PLDT's performance and strategic direction, we have PLDT's CFO, Mr. Danny Yu; PLDT's Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Butch Jimenez; our Chief Legal Counsel, Attorney, Joan De Venecia-Fabul; our Corporate Secretary, Attorney, Marilyn Victorio-Aquino. We also have our business unit heads, our Head of Consumer Business Home, Mr. John Palanca; our Head of Enterprise, Mr. Blums Pineda; and our OICs for Smart Communications, Ms. Marjorie Garrovillo and Mr. Lloyd Manaloto. We also have online with us ePLDT and VITRO President, Viboy Genuino. [Operator Instructions] Right, to start, I'd like to invite our Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Danny Yu, to walk us through PLDT's financial performance.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Please allow me to present PLDT's financial and operating highlights for the full year 2025. Our gross service revenues reached PHP 212.2 billion, up 2% or PHP 3.8 billion. Net service revenues reached PHP 196.2 billion, marking a record Cash OpEx subsidies and provisions came down to PHP 84.9 billion, down 1%, reflecting our focus on spending control even as we support the growth areas. EBITDA, excluding MRP costs, rose 3% to PHP 111.2 billion with margin steady at 52%. Telco core income was PHP 33.9 billion, down 3%, mainly due to higher financing costs and depreciation as we continue to invest in network upgrades. Core income improved to PHP 34.6 billion, up 1%, supported by Maya's swing to profitability. Overall, our fiscal year results show a stable top line, resilient EBITDA, improving contribution from our digital business and stronger cash as CapEx came down. Our consolidated service revenues reached PHP 196.2 billion, up 1% or PHP 1.5 billion year-on-year. If we exclude legacy services, revenue would have grown 3% or PHP 5.5 billion to PHP 176.9 billion. This now makes up about 90% of total service revenues versus 88% a year ago. For wireless, mobile data and fixed wireless reached PHP 77.2 billion, up 1%, making up 91% of wireless revenues versus 89% last year. Wireless consumer revenues were PHP 85 billion, steady year-on-year. For Home, fiber continues to lead the story. Fiber revenues grew 6% to PHP 59.4 billion, accounting for 98% of Home revenues versus 92% a year ago. As a result, Home revenues reached an all-time high of PHP 61 billion, up 3%. For Enterprise, corporate data and ICT grew 3% to PHP 36.3 billion, now 75% of Enterprise revenues versus 72% last year. ICT on its [indiscernible] 25% year-on-year. Overall, Enterprise revenues grew to a record PHP 48.4 billion. By and large, the continued shift towards fiber, wireless data and ICT is what is driving the growth, more than offsetting the decline in legacy services. To close the year, we ended fourth quarter stronger versus 3 quarter, Q3, building on the momentum that we saw last quarter. Consolidated service revenue in the fourth quarter were PHP 50.3 billion, up 3% quarter-on-quarter. Wireless consumer revenues were PHP 21.8 billion, up 4%, driven by mobile data and fixed wireless access. Enterprise revenues were PHP 12.7 billion, up 5%, led by corporate data and ICT. Home was flat quarter-on-quarter due to multiple major calamities in the fourth quarter, including 2 earthquakes and 4 super typhoons, which affected installation activity as resources were diverted to repair and restoration. Let's take a closer look at each of the business units. As mentioned earlier, Home delivered record revenues in 2025. On this slide, I will focus on the drivers behind the performance. Subscriber growth stayed strong and quality led. Fiber net adds reached 392,000 in 2025, up 98% year-on-year, bringing total fiber subs to 3.76 million. This was supported by faster installs, improved service reliability and more affordable fiber options that help broaden adoption. Customer economics stayed healthy, supported by our bundling strategy. ARPU was stable at PHP 1,447 for the full year. Churn remained very manageable at 1.82%. We continue to strengthen our content bundles with Cignal, Netflix and HBO Max. We also expanded beyond streaming into home services through Home Life, which offers starter kits for home security and everyday living. And through iGV Game Pass, we give subscriber access to over 200 PC games. Overall, we continue to grow Home in a disciplined way, turning CapEx into stronger revenues while keeping margins resilient. Wireless consumer revenues held steady in a highly competitive market. Here, I'll focus on key drivers of the business, particularly hyper personalization, 5G adoption and fixed wireless access. Worth noting is that the gains in the third quarter were carried on to the fourth quarter as we streamline offers and customer management while continuing to invest in network quality. We also saw sequential ARPU improvement with smart prepaid up 4% quarter-on-quarter and TNT up 3% quarter-on-quarter, supported by better targeting and more relevant offers. Usage continued to rise. Mobile data traffic grew 7% to 5,900 petabytes in 2025 and active data users reached 43.2 million as of end of December. 5G adoption also continues to expand, and this supports revenues as 5G users typically consume more data and take up bigger plans. 5G devices were up 35% to 11.2 million, while 5G data traffic rose 88%. 5G devices now make up 19% of the total base. As more traffic moves to 5G, it also helps decongest LTE, improving the experience across the network. Fixed wireless access remains a key [indiscernible]. Fixed wireless revenues were up 22% year-on-year, supported by the shift from 4G to 5G fixed wireless access, which improves service and help us use network capacity more efficiently. Lastly, our core modernization is now underway. This strengthens analytics and targeting, improves marketing efficiency and supports ARPUs. Enterprise delivered its highest revenues in 2025, and we ended the year stronger. In Q4, revenue rose 5% quarter-on-quarter, supported by ICT contract wins and better delivery momentum. The mix continues to shift beyond pure connectivity with more customers taking the solution-led services alongside core connectivity. ICT is the key growth driver. ICT revenues grew 25% for the full year, led by managed IT services, which jumped 211%; and data center colocation, which expanded by 15%. In Q4, ICT was up 19% year-on-year and 15% quarter-on-quarter, supported by contract wins and better delivery. We also strengthened our security stack with SmartSafe SilentAccess, a network-powered sign-in solution that moves beyond SMS OTPs and aligned with the BSP's push for stronger digital authentication. Lastly, SME also contributed to growth with revenues up 3% year-on-year, supported by fiber and mobile access and scalable ICT offers, including SME engagement series with government and partners. Overall, enterprise is back in growth mode anchored on ICT and digital infra. I'll zero in on VITRO and Pilipinas AI on the next slide. VITRO is now on its 25th year, and it remains the market leader with the widest data center footprint in the Philippines. That matters because enterprise, cloud, AI workloads all depend on the uptime, security and trust. In April 2025, we launched the country's first operational hyperscale facility through VITRO. VITRO Santa Rosa is designed for enterprise, hyperscalers and public sector workloads, with about 4,500 racks and up to 50,000 megawatts once fully energized. It now hosts live NVIDIA GPU servers powering ePLDT's AI stack solutions. Demand remains still with colocation up 36%, supported by a 19% increase in rack deployments. On top of the infra, we're also building the AI layer Pilipinas AI, the country's first sovereign AI solution stack. This tool allows enterprises and the PH government to adopt AI without heavy upfront build-out while keeping data and workload hosted locally. To make this tangible, we already have live AI use cases running in VITRO today. These include AI-powered contact center tools that automate routine steps, improve response quality and give agents better prompts and insights. We also run conversational AI or top course that can handle [ publish ] and multistep conversation for customer support and lead generation. Lastly, we also have AI assistance that improve productivity in collection and other workloads by guiding next best actions and reducing handling time. VITRO and Pilipinas AI strengthen PLDT's position in data center and AI and support our long-term plan to scale this business with discipline. As we continue to invest in the business, we are also keeping a tight grip on costs as operating expenses came in lower for the third consecutive year. For the full year 2025, total cash CapEx subsidies provisions came in at PHP 84.9 billion, down PHP 1.2 billion or 1% year-on-year. The biggest savings came from compensation and benefits, down 6%, reflecting continued workforce discipline and productivity efforts. We also spent less on selling and promotions, down 9%, supported by better targeting and spend efficiency. Provisions and subsidies were both lower year-on-year, reflecting more disciplined customer acquisition and tighter credit screening in device-led plans. Offsetting some of these, contract-specific services increased, tied to the ramp-up of key ICT projects. Repairs and maintenance was also higher, reflecting ongoing network rollout and uptick. All told, we are managing OpEx -- rather OpEx carefully while still funding the priorities that support growth and service quality. For the full year 2025, EBITDA reached PHP 111.2 billion, up 3% year-on-year with margin steady at 52%. This was driven by a PHP 1.5 billion increase in service revenues alongside a PHP 1.2 billion decline in operating costs. The EBITDA margin held firm at 52% for the year, reflecting our ability to defend profitability even in a competitive market. Telco core income was PHP 33.9 billion, down 3% year-on-year, mainly due to higher depreciation and financing costs as we continue to invest in network and infra. Core income improved to PHP 34.6 billion, up 1%, supported by Maya's milestone year. Our share in Maya's core income was PHP 0.7 billion, improving from PHP 1 billion loss last year or PHP 1.3 billion upswing. Reported income was PHP 30 billion, down 7% year-on-year. This mainly reflects the lower ForEx and derivative gains versus last year. Overall, core earnings held up, supported by the steady operation and Maya's improving contribution. Meanwhile, our modernization work position us for the next phase of growth. Let me now move to CapEx and free cash flow. First, we sustained positive free cash flow through end 2025, building on what we achieved last quarter. Full year 2025 CapEx was PHP 60.3 billion, down from PHP 78.2 billion last year. CapEx intensity improved to 28% from 38% a year ago, reflecting tighter discipline and better pricing and terms. For 2026, our CapEx guidance is in the mid PHP 50 billion range with the same focus on growth and quality. Our goal is to steadily bring CapEx and CapEx intensity down while sustaining positive free cash flow. Let me now move to our debt profile as of December 2025. I'll start with a key point. PLDT sustained positive free cash flow as of end of 2025, supporting our deleveraging path. Net debt was PHP 284.7 billion, while net debt-to-EBITDA was at 2.56x. Gross debt was PHP 296.9 billion, and our maturity profile remains long dated with 49% of our maturities are post 2031. This keeps our near-term refinancing needs manageable. Interest cover remains healthy at 3.3x. Average debt maturity is 6.5 years, with 33% fixed rate and 67% floating as we anticipate lower rates moving into 2026. Finally, our recent annual review, PLDT continues to be rated investment grade by S&P and Moody's with stable outlooks. Looking ahead, our focus is to maintain positive free cash flow in 2026 and works toward around 2.0x net debt to EBITDA, supported by our asset monetization plans. For 2025, total dividends amount to PHP 94 per share, reflecting a 16% regular dividend payout aligned with our policy. A final dividend of PHP 46 per share for 2025 was declared today. PLDT continues to focus on deleveraging to generate positive free cash flows. As of end of 2025, PLDT's 12-month trailing dividend yield stood at 8%, positioning us as one of the most attractive dividend plays in the market. On to Maya. Maya operates as an integrated digital financing platform covering payments, savings and lending. The platform serves both consumers and businesses with scale driving higher transactions, broader product usage and stronger network effects. These dynamics support Maya's leadership in digital financial services in the Philippines. Maya closed 2025 with robust growth and achieved full year profitability. As of December 2025, Maya remained as the leading digital bank and merchant acquirer in the Philippines. Deposit balances reached approximately PHP 68 billion, up 72% year-on-year. Total loans disbursed since 2022 reached PHP 256 billion. The Maya Group delivered PHP 1.7 billion in net income for 2025, marking its first full year of profitability. Performance was supported by Maya's proprietary technology platform and AI capabilities. On the funding side, deposit products continue to attract customers with competitive interest rates. In 2025, Maya accelerated credit expansion through the launch of the Maya Black credit card and continued scaling of easy credit and personal loans. Credit quality remains stable with a gross NPL ratio of 6.1% as portfolio continued to mature. Maya continues to expand access to formal banking across the country. Its customer base is predominantly young with majority located outside Metro Manila. So through digital banking and credit products, Maya enables consumers to save securely, spend flexibly and access credit responsibly. In 2025, Maya expanded partnership across the private and public sectors. Private sector collaboration included Cebuana Lhuillier for new-to-credit consumers and Pepsi-Cola Philippines and Ultra Mega to enable purchase financing for micro businesses. Maya also partnered with Philippine Airlines to integrate airline miles into Maya app and supported digital engagement and voting platforms such as Pinoy Big Brother and Miss Universe Philippines. In the public sector, partnership with agencies, including the Department of Education, the Philippine Sports Commission and the National Power Corporation help improve access to digital financial services. Based on the performance of its products and partnership, Maya continues to redefine digital finance in the Philippines. From PLDT's perspective as a shareholder, Maya's first full year of profitability reflects the strength of its platform-led model and the long-term growth potential. PLDT continues to make notable gains in sustainability. For the second straight year, PLDT was included in the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook after posting the highest CSA score among the Philippine companies at 77. On 848 out of 9,200 companies assessed were included, further evidencing the improvement it has made in ESG. PLDT also earned a B rating from CDP for both climate and water, performing in line with global and industry averages on climate while exceeding averages on water. PLDT remained at the forefront of adopting global reporting framework on ESG to further improve transparency and communication of progress to its various stakeholders. During the quarter, the Board approved policies on water and energy management to support energy efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction objectives, energy audits and energy management trainings were conducted nationwide. In support of our advocacy of creating a safe online environment, we continued to block access to malicious domains and URLs. We also deployed in-house innovation using AI to enhance risk assessment for both the enterprise and our employees. A summary of our latest ESG ratings that manifest the progress that we have made can be found in the Sustainability section of the presentation. Now that concludes our prepared remarks for PLDT's full year 2025 results. We are now open for questions.

Thank you, Danny, for those valuable insights on our growth initiatives and key developments. As you've seen today, we remain confident in our market position, supported by our improving operational fundamentals, strategic investments in digital infrastructure and the promising growth trajectory of Maya. Before we open the floor to your questions, allow me to reintroduce our business leaders who are here with us, who can also help answer your queries. We have our Chairman and CEO, Mr. Manuel V. Pangilinan; of course, our CFO, Mr. Danny Yu; our COO, Mr. Butch Jimenez; our Corporate Secretary, Attorney, Marilyn Victorio-Aquino; our Chief Legal Counsel, Attorney, Joan De Venecia-Fabul. We have our business unit heads, our consumer -- our Head of Consumer Business Home, Mr. John Palanca; our Head of Enterprise Business, Mr. Blums Pineda; the OICs for Smart Communications, Ms. Marjorie Garrovillo and Mr. Lloyd Manaloto. We also have with us President and CEO of ePLDT and VITRO, Mr. Viboy Genuino. Now I'd like to open the floor to your questions. [Operator Instructions] And I've also received a number of questions here before the meeting started. I see we have a hand raised by John Te of UBS.

Let me go over my questions one by one, if you don't mind. First is on Mobile. I just want to understand the 5% growth quarter-on-quarter, which was relatively consistent with what Globe reported. But the drivers differed. We saw ARPU growth for PLDT and subscriber growth for Globe. So do you mind explaining what you think drove that difference in this quarter?

Sorry, we didn't hear the beginning part of your question, but I suppose this is in regards to our wireless business and the growth of 5% had different drivers for Smart and PLDT. So I'll turn the question over to you...

So our drivers for growth for the quarter 4 were including our launch of high personalization offers, which allowed us to upsell and therefore, drive our ARPUs. Moreover, if you look at our subscriber base, if you break it down to the numbers, our gross activations actually increased by roughly about 10%, 15%, while our churn held firm. So that basically shows us also an increase in our subscriber base plus the fact that our ARPUs also increased.

My second question is on broadband. It was flat quarter-on-quarter, and we saw some softness in ARPU, although offset by subscriber adds. So was this, I guess, driven mostly by prepaid acquisitions or anything that could have influenced ARPU?

This is John from PLDT Home. The second half of 2025, as you know, was really one that was ridden with calamities. We had a few major calamities, including earthquakes and typhoons, including super typhoons, Tino and Uwan. These activities or these events actually caused us to balance our growth with customer trust. And we had to redeploy our resources to ensure that our existing customers were restored. We were impacted by these events and the redeployment of our resources, our repair resources to -- in our growth path. So our installation slightly went down, but it was a good balance of maintaining a growth trajectory as well as restoring those affected areas. The big difference, I believe, between the previous years was that while the previous calamities were driven by strong winds, today, they're driven by floods. And flooding means extra restoration work for us as we would have to go into the homes to replace the wires and the modems. Last year, 22 million were actually affected by the typhoons that began in July and ended in December plus the 3 earthquakes and 293,000 homes were actually affected from PLDT. Glad to say that we feel that the trust remained because we were able to keep 73% of those customers, and we continue to work with the remaining 68,000 to handhold them and make sure that we do everything we can to keep them on the network. On the second part of your question on the ARPU softening, as you know, we're operating in a more price-sensitive environment today. And the entry-level tiers are really our growth drivers. However, there is still a very stable demand in the pipeline for our mid- to high-tier postpaid plans. Moreover, our upsell activities from the entry-level tiers remain to be healthy. So the movement is not really any structural price erosion. Rather, it more reflects our portfolio and the mix optimization to balance growth with lifetime value. Prepaid does expand our overall market. It opens up another -- you asked about prepaid, let me reply. It is a growth driver. It opens up our market to an additional 12 million rooms, but we choose to participate selectively. We still have headroom in our existing facilities, which brings us more margins, but less capital intensity. So we will only participate where the returns are within our thresholds. Thank you.

Okay. I'll just combine my third and fourth question. Maybe a quick update on a Konektadong Pinoy, what are your overall thoughts on what might happen? And the second question is just an update on the data center and the potential IPO for Maya, which we -- I guess, we've seen in the press the past few days.

This is Joan. I will respond to the question on Konektadong Pinoy. So as you may know, the IRR, or the implementing rules of the KP Act were implemented last December and took effect. And the next steps would be the issuance of the eligibility criteria for data transmission industry participants, or DTIPs that has already been released. The performance standards are also forthcoming. And the guidelines on the big ones policy are also about to be issued. Now the crucial next step would be the issuance by the DICT, PCC and NTC of the initial access list. So as you may know, that should come out in March. However, we note that the TWG has not yet been formally constituted for that, and the industry has also not yet been invited to participate in the formulation of the draft access list. So that's where we are. The trigger for the issuance of the reference access offer of the DTIPs, including the incumbent telcos is, of course, the issuance of the initial access list. So prior to that issuance, there is no basis for us to move with a reference access offer because we don't know what products, infrastructure or services would be included in the initial access list. So we will continue to provide updates on this as the days and months pass. Thank you.

And allow me to answer your question on Maya's IPO. Apologies, John, but we're not able to comment on the news surrounding Maya's IPO at this time. I hope you understand.

And just 2 quick follow-ups. The data center stake sale, what the update on that? And then just separately on Konektadong Pinoy, I think we didn't touch on the loss pertaining to spectrum. I think that was an equally important part of the bill.

Yes. On the -- we're seriously considering a REIT IPO for our data center, John. Unfortunately, we cannot discuss about the timing. But yes, an international bank is helping us on this one.

On the spectrum management policy framework, which is required as well in the Konektadong Pinoy law, this is supposed to be released by the NTC by end of year 2026 or one more year after that. So we have no information as of now as to whether this has already been considered by the NTC because there are several deadlines that have to be met by them before this particular deadline on spectrum. So we can expect that the movement on spectrum discussions will happen in Q3, Q4, thereabouts. Yes. So in so far as PLDT Smart is concerned, we are utilizing our spectrum. And I think the management policy framework of the NTC will really tackle more the underutilized or unutilized spectrum and for possible recalls. So we have no issues with this actually.

Thank you, Attorney Joan and John. Allow me to move to some of the questions here in the Q&A box. This one is for our Home business from Paolo Manansala of COL. Just wanted to ask how broadband revenues are up 3%, but fiber is up 6%. What is the drag in growth for the Home broadband line?

Paolo, yes, we actually grew our fiber business from PHP 56 billion to PHP 59.4 billion, up PHP 3.4 billion. However, we do have some drag from our legacy services. That includes our copper facilities that remain to be in the numerous buildings across the country. And there are a few voice-only lines that remain to be migrated into voice plus data over fiber. Our legacy services in 2024 used to amount to PHP 3.2 billion. We've reduced that in 2025 to PHP 1.5 billion. So therefore, the total home business grew by 3%, accounting for the reduced revenues that we enjoy from the legacy services by PHP 1.7 billion.

Thank you, John. All right. This next question is from Zhiwei Foo of Macquarie, and this is on Maya. There was a step-up in loans disbursed during the fourth quarter of 2025, yet there was a Q-on-Q decline in share of earnings. Could you help me understand what happened here? So regarding Maya on the decline in Q4 profits, I do want to say that the revenues remain highly diversified across payments, transactions and digital banking services, and that's for both the consumer side as well as the business side, right? And I do want to emphasize as well that for 2025, Maya posted positive net income, which was a turnaround from the losses last year. The quarter-on-quarter decline was primarily driven by nonoperating and onetime items. So that includes fair value adjustments and foreign exchange movements as well as some investments in new products such as credit cards, new capabilities, including AI. Now there was some impact from the delinking of the gaming applications during the quarter, but that is -- the impact of that is not as large as those onetime items, and that has fully washed through the fourth quarter results. All right. I have a raised hand here from [ Raymond Franco ].

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay. My first 2 questions were answered just now. If you can -- but this is still on Maya. Can you share the numbers on total provisioning levels on the lending side of Maya? And how does that compare to 2024? And then the second question is, can you break out the loans extended in Q4 between credit cards and others?

I don't think we disclosed the breakdown in loans. But in regards to provisioning, the credit cards were launched Maya Black and Landers were launched within the last year, and there were some provisioning in relation to the launch of the credit cards. I think this was mentioned during our 9-month results. So just because of this new business line, there's that difference in provisions. You can think about it in that way. But I can't give exact figures on that. Right. We also have some questions here that came in before the meeting started. This question is on our data centers, and it's from [ Mackie Carunungan of FPF Securities ]. I'll direct this to Viboy or to Blums. Can you provide IRR or payback expectations for your AI-ready data center investments? How do returns compare versus traditional data centers and regular connectivity such as mobile and fiber infrastructure. There's a follow-up here on the data center REIT, but I'll ask that afterwards. So Blums or Viboy, would you like to take this question?

Yes. It's a new product that we launched for our data center business. Traditionally, we just have colocation and connectivity, but now we have a new service called Pilipinas AI. We're very happy to launch the first sovereign AI stack in the Philippines, which is getting a lot of interest from both the private sector and the public sector. Now customers have an option. If you want to run POCs or use cases on AI, you now have a couple of choices, either you go to the public cloud or you build your own sovereign on-premise stack or you can co-locate to VITRO Santa Rosa, wherein the AI stack is now available. So now customers have an option. But if your data is very sensitive, then the choice for customers would be keeping your data on-prem, and this is what VITRO Santa Rosa offers. Thank you.

Thank you, Viboy. A follow-up question on the data center REIT, if it is pursued, is the objective -- and I think this question is for Danny. Is the objective to deleverage or unlock value multiples? Would a partial divestment dilute long-term earnings versus retaining full ownership? Are we going to be using the proceeds? Is the REIT IPO there deleverage?

Yes. The REIT IPO, the proceeds will be primarily used to pay off debt. That's the primary objective.

And do you believe that will this unlock valuation multiples for the data center?

Partly yes, but the REIT will only cover the 8 data centers and it does not include the VITRO Santa Rosa. So it's a partial unlocking of value.

All right. Next question here is from Gregg Ilag of BPI Securities. This is on interest expense. On interest expense, the growth seems to be faster than the rise in total debt. Would you provide some color on what's driving that? So the growth in interest expense is faster than the growth in total debt. What is driving that? Is that higher interest rates or higher debt level?

The increase in financing cost is a function of interest rate loan balance as well as the accretion on lease liabilities, right? So if you try to dissect the increase in financing charges in 2025, 35% of that was mainly due to interest rate, 40 to loan balances, about 25 to accretion of lease liabilities. On interest rate, we have started the negotiation with the local banks on a smaller spread as well as on reduced repricing period. And so far, we have been quite successful, and this will give us considerable savings. Now with respect to loan balances, we expect to pay -- we started -- we think that we can start paying off debt by the latter part of 2026. So we should be able to bring down our total debt in 2026 versus 2025.

Thank you, Danny. This other question is also from Gregg, and it's for our Mobile business. On Mobile, quarter-on-quarter growth was around 5% despite a very weak GDP print. Can you provide some color on what drives that demand? For March, I believe.

Can you -- the last...

Sorry, so Mobile grew faster than GDP. So what's driving that step-up in demand versus a slow economy overall?

So as mentioned earlier, with regards to Mobile, we were able to execute a few hyper-personalizations, which allowed us to upsell. The other item as well is we've actually improved our network in terms of resiliency, which actually helped us during the last quarter where we had to deal with some natural disasters, and we were able to recover quickly, thanks to our network teams for being able to do that. So that helped and actually set us up for the annual seasonality in terms of Mobile. That helped our numbers for Mobile in the past quarter.

Thank you, Lloyd. All right. It looks like Raymond, you have your hand raised for another question. Go ahead.

Yes. Just a quick follow-up on Maya. Can you share the recurring net income for 2025, if you take out all of the one-offs?

We're not able to provide that at this time. Let me go to some other questions here that were sent before the meeting started. This is also for Mobile. Mobile is showing some improvement in the second half versus the...

The profits of Maya for 2025 was about PHP 1.7 billion. In 2024, it was a loss of PHP 2.5 billion in '24. PHP 2.5 billion loss in '24 and a profit of PHP 1.7 billion for 2025. What's the other question?

The question is what's the recurring income.

So it's hard to distinguish in the case of Maya, there were some subsidies on the credit card that flowed into the P&L for 2025, which will flow again into the P&L in 2026, maybe even beyond. So I think you could take the PHP 1.7 million as more or less recurring income for [indiscernible]. Is there another part to your question?

Raymond?

No, that's all I have.

Thank you, MVP. All right. Let me move to a question on Mobile. I think this is partly connected to the first, but Mobile is showing some improvement in momentum in the second half versus the first half. Was there something done differently in the second half? And do you anticipate this momentum to carry on to 2026?

So the Smart performances for the second half has actually been quite consistent. We'll see a quarter-on-quarter growth as a trend. This is largely driven by a consistent growth in our subscriber base, along with new activations. And that is also -- in the back of that is also our churn numbers have also not dramatically decreased and has been quite constant. When you pair this together with the hyper-targeting offers that we've been mentioning earlier, we've actually been able to add not just the subscribers, but to actually increase the ARPU levels per subscriber. And that put together has actually given us the increase in our revenues quarter-on-quarter.

Thank you, Marj. Right. This other question also came in. Could you comment on the earnings trends that you're seeing across the industry? And how do you compare against Globe's recent disclosure?

The Philippine telco industry was kind of anemic in 2025. But comparing the 2 entities in terms of net service revenues, our revenues grew by 1% this year compared to flat for Globe or in fact, it was slightly lower at PHP 200 million. So in terms of core income, PLDT was up by 1%, while the core income was 3% lower compared to the previous year. But if you strip off the fintech contribution and talk purely on telco core income, PLDT was slightly down only by 3%, while our nearest competitor was down by more than 10%. In fact, based on our estimate, it's kind of about 15% to 17%. But we are seeing also market repair in the second half of the year. In fact, it's quite more paramount in the fourth quarter of the year. So we could see improvement in the fourth quarter. And hopefully, both Globe, PLDT along with the industry players will do better in 2026.

Thank you, Danny. Looks like we have a question here from Arthur Pineda of Citi.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Several questions. First, any growth guidance on revenue and EBITDA for 2026? In addition, are you able to give us any flavor on VITRO's capacity take-up? I'm just trying to figure out how it will contribute further into 2026 based on the pipeline that you have.

Viboy, would you like to take the question on capacity takeup for VITRO?

Yes. Thank you, Arthur, for that question. So we have 9 data centers in total. Of the 8 of those data centers are our data centers spanning Clark in Metro Manila, in Pasig, in Cebu and in Davao. These are our older sites, if you may, and they have a total capacity utilization of close to 80% currently. The ninth data center that we have is called VITRO Santa Rosa, which we inaugurated April of last year. Out of the 36 megawatts of total capacity there, we have already sold 6 megawatts. So that is our total capacity take-up to date. We are anticipating additional workloads to hopefully come in once government passes a department order or an executive order on data sovereignty and data localization in the Philippines because, as you know, government is the single largest owner of data in the country. Thank you, Arthur.

Arthur, we can't really give guidance at the moment. I think it's just too early at this point. So -- but one thing for sure is our CapEx is going to be mid PHP 50 billion, so -- that's it.

Sorry, it went silent for a while after you said PHP 50 billion, was there any...

What I'm saying is that we could not give guidance at the moment. I think it's too early to tell. We're just in February. So what is certain though is our CapEx guidance is going to be in mid PHP 50 billion. So it's between PHP 53 billion and PHP 57 billion.

And Danny, this question is for you as well, and this is in regards to our positive free cash flows after the 2 quarters where we were positive. Can we expect this to be sustainable into 2026? And in terms of deleveraging, what can we expect?

I think the -- I think positive free cash flow is sustainable for as long as we rationalize and moderate our CapEx and pursue all the asset monetization programs.

Thank you, Danny. Okay, let me check the Q&A box. There are some questions here as well. Okay. This is from Zhiwei Foo of Macquarie on Mobile. You mentioned being able to drive higher ARPUs from hyper-personalization, which shows that consumers have room to spend more. How much more do you think the consumer can spend and lift ARPUs further? And what percentage of subs is using this hyper-personalization and raising ARPU?

So I'll answer the last question first. But roughly based on our CBM capabilities, we've got consent for roughly 40 million of our subscriber base to actually be targeted for these offers. So that's the first question. With regards to our guidance on the ARPU, we're looking at driving a further 2% of the ARPU to help improve our revenues.

Thank you, Lloyd. And this question is for Blums on Enterprise business. It looks like there's some momentum in the second half. Are these mostly from recurring businesses or onetime large deals? How sustainable is the run rate moving forward? Blums, are you there?

Yes, sorry, can you repeat the back end of the question?

Basically, is the uptick in revenues due to recurring revenues we can expect to carry forward or large onetime deals?

Yes. It's a mix of both actually. So obviously, we had some very big wins in particular, Q3 and Q4 last year. The emergency 911 national contract was a big one. We were beginning to see part of that in Q4. But those will deliver recurring revenues in 2026. So there's a mix of onetime one-off as well as things that really drive monthly recurring charges on both the connectivity side as well as some of the managed IT services side. So it's a combination.

Thank you, Blums. Arthur, I still see your hand raised. Is there another question from you?

No, sorry. Let me put it down.

I don't see any other questions in the queue. Let me just wait a couple of moments here, if there are any other questions from the live audience. If not, then perhaps I may invite our CEO, MVP, for some closing remarks.

Thank you. Well, first of all, thank you for joining us this afternoon. But maybe add a bit more color to what my colleagues -- not prepared, so let's take my neck out. In respect of the -- our ability to -- just addressing the cash flow issue, especially the free cash flow. If you assume that we're able to maintain our EBITDA in 2025 over to 2026, which I think we can, let's say, it was PHP 111 billion, right, for 2025. And if you assume what Danny indicated to you that our CapEx will land somewhere around PHP 55 billion. Our interest expense this year or 2025 was around PHP 17 billion. I think we're positive cash flow in the last quarter this year 2025. We could probably maintain interest expense at around PHP 17 billion and taxes at PHP 7 billion. When you do your sums, the free cash flow available for dividends is about PHP 32 billion. Our dividends will probably be around PHP 21 billion or thereabouts, PHP 22 billion next year or rather [ '26 ]. So we could probably be able to start reducing our debt to the tune of at least PHP 10 billion in the second half of 2026. So those are the broad numbers from a cash standpoint. We do anticipate some slight growth in profitability for 2026. For one, we think that Maya will likely improve its profit performance in 2026 compared to 2025. Now where we are in Maya in respect of IPO because I hope -- unfortunately, in Meralco interview with media briefing -- well, media briefing at Meralco. Anyway, yes, at the behest or at the initiative of KKR, KKR engaged 2 banks late last year to do a market scan, especially in the States of what -- whether an IPO would be possible in 2026 or 2027. And what that market scan, they have engaged us also in a discussion about the potential IPO for Maya. Currently, the potential terms of an IPO are being discussed with them, including the size of the offering, the timing and the like. So if anything moves, it will be probably in the second half, not in this first half. So it could spill over to 2027. So we don't know at this stage the exact timing. We know who the banks are. PLDT probably will have to engage with own financial adviser at some point in the year. So that's where we are. I think beyond that, we can't comment as to terms. Thank you. So thank you. Hope to see you guys after we announce our first quarter results.

Thank you, MVP, and thank you, everybody. For those -- Kervin, I see your hand raised, I can take your question offline, and I can pick that one. And thank you, everybody, for joining. That's about all the time we have today, and we will see you in May for our first quarter results for 2026. Have a good afternoon.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations here at PLDT. And it's my pleasure to welcome you all to our 9-month financial and operating results briefing. Joining us today to share insights into PLDT's performance and strategic direction are PLDT's Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Danny Yu; PLDT's Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Butch Jimenez; PLDT Corporate Secretary, Marilyn Victorio-Aquino; PLDT Chief Legal Counsel, Attorney, Joan De Venecia-Fabul; Head of Consumer Business, Mr. John Palanca; Head of Enterprise Business, Mr. Blums Pineda; ePLDT President and CEO, Viboy Genuino as well as our OICs for Smart, Lloyd Manaloto and Ms. Marjorie Garrovillo. All right. So before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that we will have a Q&A session after the presentation [Operator Instructions]. To start, I'd like to invite our Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Danny Yu, to walk us through PLDT's financial performance.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Allow me to present PLDT's financial and operating highlights for the first 9 months of the year. Our service revenues net of interconnection cost reached PHP 145.9 billion, up 1% year-on-year, driven by steady demand across fiber, data and ICT. Cash OpEx, subsidies and provisions were down 2%, showing our focus on spending control and even as we support growth areas. EBITDA rose 3% to PHP 82.8 billion with margin steady at 52%, amidst higher revenues and lower OpEx. Telco core income came in at PHP 25.3 billion, down 5%, mainly due to higher depreciation and financing costs from network and IT investments. On the other hand, core income was stable at PHP 25.8 billion, supported by Maya's sustained profitability. Our share in Maya's core net income reached PHP 603 million for the period, a PHP 1.5 billion turnaround from last year's loss. Maya remained profitable for the third consecutive quarter, showing consistency that it solidifies its position as the country's leading fintech ecosystem. In summary, our 9-month results show a stable top line, resilient EBITDA and improving contribution from digital businesses. Consolidated service revenues reached PHP 145.9 billion, up 1% year-on-year. If we exclude legacy services, total revenues rose 3%, showing the continued expansion of our growth areas. Within these growth segments, fiber revenues grew 7%, reflecting solid demand for reliable connectivity. Mobile data and fixed wireless revenues were up 1%, with usage and 5G adoption continuing to rise. Please note that beginning this quarter, we will now include fixed wireless access, FWA, within our growth segments for our wireless business. The base numbers have been adjusted accordingly to provide like-for-like comparison and reflect organic growth. Fixed wireless growth is driven by the expanding 5G base and stronger network coverage. For enterprise, corporate data and ICT revenues grew 2%, returning to growth in the third quarter as government and public sector projects started to ramp up after election-related delays in the first half. ICT on its own grew 27%. Overall, the shift towards these growth areas, namely fiber, data, fixed wireless and ICT continues to offset the decline in legacy revenues. Focusing on the third quarter, I'd like to point out that all major business units delivered positive growth even with legacy drags showing recovery, especially for our mobile and enterprise groups. Consolidated service revenues rose 2% year-on-year to PHP 48.8 billion. Excluding legacy services, total revenues rose 4%. Wireless consumer revenues were up 1% with mobile data and fixed wireless delivering 3% growth year-on-year. Home revenues climbed 3%, while fiber revenues were up 6%. Enterprise, as mentioned earlier, is now back on its growth path, still a 2% increase year-on-year with corporate data and ICT up 5%, while ICT services on its own grew 51% year-on-year, as government projects begin pushing through. Overall, third quarter marked a broad-based recovery with improvements in both mobile and enterprise, reflecting steady execution and disciplined growth across the group. Now let's take a closer look at each of the business units. Home revenues grew 4% year-on-year to PHP 45.7 billion, driven mainly by continued fiber demand. Fiber revenues were up 7% to PHP 44.5 billion, now accounting for 97% of total home revenues. We added 265,000 net fiber subs year-to-date, up 67% versus last year. Total fiber base is now 8% higher year-on-year. On prepaid, we have selectively introduced prepaid fiber in appropriate growth markets, specifically targeting quality subs, who have a high probability of topping up regularly. In this way, we not only secure revenue growth but also sustainable profits in the long run. Prepaid sub count has grown 15x since end of 2024. ARPU held steady at PHP 1,470, the highest in the industry, driven by our value-based bundles such as video and gaming. Churn remained low at 1.9%, reflecting strong customer loyalty and consistent network quality. To further extend our reach, we have launched Air Fiber and Laser Internet providing fiber-like speeds in hard-to-reach areas at lower cost. This technology expands our coverage and improve service availability in underserved locations. Overall, Home continues to deliver solid growth, underpinned by fiber leadership, high ARPU and expanding access through new technologies. Let's now move on to Enterprise. Year-to-date revenues reached PHP 35.6 billion for the first 9 months, broadly steady year-on-year, while corporate data and ICT revenues rose 2% year-on-year to PHP 26.7 billion. Within this, ICT revenues grew 27% year-on-year, driven by strong demand for managed IT services up 115%, data center colocation up 25%, cybersecurity services up 12%. Importantly, the business unit returned to growth during the third quarter, reversing early year softness as delayed government projects pushed through. Enterprise revenue rose 5% versus the second quarter with corporate data and ICT up 7%, led by a 40% increase in ICT services. Corporate data and ICT now account for 75% of total enterprise revenues, reflecting our continued shift toward high-value services. PLDT also continues to strengthen its leadership in AI and data infra, positioning the group at the forefront of the country's digital transformation. We recently launched Pilipinas AI, the country's first sovereign AI platform hosted at VITRO Santa Rosa. This platform enables the enterprise to build and deploy AI models locally, giving businesses access to GPU-powered computing on demand. For our wireless business, revenues reached PHP 63.2 billion for the first 9 months, down slightly by PHP 0.3 billion versus last year due to legacy brands. Data revenues, which now include mobile data and fixed wireless rose 1% year-on-year to PHP 57.3 billion, accounting for 91% of total wireless revenues. For the third quarter alone, data revenues were up 3% year-on-year, reflecting steady demand and continued monetization discipline. Fixed wireless sustained strong momentum with revenues up 18% year-on-year as Smart leads the market by revenue share. If we remove fixed wireless, mobile data revenues rose 1% to PHP 56 billion. Performance was supported by stable data traffic growth, disciplined monetization, customer value management initiatives that help optimize spend and reduce marketing costs. 5G adoption continues to expand with the number of 5G devices up 39% year-on-year to 10.5 million, while data traffic rose 6% year-on-year to 4,393 petabytes. The share of 5G devices in the total base improved to 18%, driving higher data usage and improved customer experience. As we continue to innovate on the product side, we also stay focused on cost discipline across the group. Total cash OpEx, subsidies and provisions for the first 9 months of the year came in at PHP 63.1 billion, down PHP 1.1 billion or 2% versus last year. The biggest savings came from compensation and benefits down 7%, reflecting continued workforce optimization. Selling and promotions were also lower by 18%, driven by better campaign targeting and spend efficiency. Subsidies were also down by 25%, reflecting Smart's deliberate shift towards higher quality acquisition and tighter credit screening for postpaid device plans. On the other hand, repairs and maintenance rose 4% to PHP 23.6 billion, reflecting ongoing network expansion and site rollouts. Contract-specific services were up 25%, tied to the ramp-up of key enterprise and ICT projects. For the first 9 months of 2025, EBITDA reached PHP 82.8 billion, up 3% year-on-year with margin steady at 52%. This performance reflects the combined impact of a PHP 1 billion rise in revenues along a PHP 1.1 billion discipline for decline in operating costs. The 52% EBITDA margin has held firm, demonstrating our ability to defend profitability even in a very competitive environment. Telco core income reached PHP 25.3 billion, down 5% year-on-year, mainly due to higher depreciation and financing costs from network and infra investments. Core income was steady at PHP 25.8 billion, supported by continued earnings from Maya, whose consolidated core income hit PHP 1.6 billion year-to-date. Maya remained profitable for the third straight quarter, continuing to gain scale through higher transaction volumes, growing deposits and steady expansion in its lending and merchandise businesses. This quarter also includes PHP 2.6 billion in accelerated depreciation and noncash charge related to modernization of our core and IT systems and the retirement of legacy assets. Reported income stood at PHP 25.1 billion, lower year-on-year, mainly reflecting the absence of last year's higher ForEx and derivative gains as well as the accelerated depreciation booked this quarter. CapEx for the first 9 months stood at PHP 43 billion, down from PHP 52.3 billion for the same period last year. CapEx intensity improved to 27% from 33% a year ago, driven by lower spend on network and IT as major projects near completion. For the full year, 2025 CapEx guidance is lowered further to PHP 60 billion, lower than the original guidance of PHP 68 billion to PHP 73 billion. This is mainly due to more favorable pricing and terms. We continue to invest in new cell sites, LTE and 5G upgrades, home fiber ports, data center development and submarine cables. These projects will strengthen network quality and support the growth of enterprise and digital services. As at end of September, net debt stood at PHP 289 billion, translating to a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 2.61x, slightly higher than the prior quarter, but still within our target range. Our gross debt was at PHP 299 billion with 60% of maturities falling beyond 2030, providing a long runway and minimal near-term refinancing pressure. About 13% of total debt is U.S. dollar-denominated. With only 5% unhedged, keeping ForEx exposure very manageable. The average interest cost was 5.49%, up slightly from last year's 5.08% as lower rate maturities are refinanced. Our interest coverage ratio remains healthy at 3.37x, while our average debt maturity is 6.5 years. PLDT remains investment grade with ratings from S&P and Moody's. In terms of cash flow, we recorded PHP 1.1 billion in proceeds from tower sales and completed a PHP 20.5 billion final dividend payment for 2024 during the period. Incidentally, PLDT hit positive free cash flow as of September 2025, ahead of its forecasted 2026 target. Looking ahead, we are working towards reducing leverage to around 2.0x net-debt-to-EBITDA, which will be supported by our asset monetization program as well as lower CapEx. Now let me now discuss Maya, the Philippines all-in-one fintech platform powered by Maya Bank and Maya Philippines. It's a fully integrated platform that unites digital payments, savings and lending for both consumer and enterprises. Maya has created a powerful 2-sided network where more customers drive more transactions, generating richer insights, which enables higher cross-sell of products and ultimately, delivering scale and profitability. Maya continues to lead with strong performance across deposits, loans and payments. Maya remains the #1 merchant acquirer and card payment processor. It delivered PHP 532 million in net income in the third quarter, sustaining profitability while growing. Banking customers nearly doubled year-on-year to 9 million, while its cumulative borrower base grew 81% to 2.4 million. Deposit reached PHP 57 billion, up 59% year-on-year and total loans disbursed since its inception hit PHP 187 billion. Maya continues to onboard millions into the formal financial system, especially younger users and underserved segments. It continues to be the digital bank of choice for young customers across the country. Of the 9 million customers in just over 3 years, 84% comprise Gen Z and millennials and 76% are based outside of Metro Manila. Of the 2.4 million borrowers that Maya has given credit to, over half are first-time borrowers with no previous lending history. Maya's deposit base has grown to PHP 56.7 billion as of September, more than doubling from end of 2023. It disbursed PHP 36 billion in quarter 3 alone, bringing its total loan disbursement since launch to PHP 187 billion. The loan book now stands at PHP 27 billion with loan-to-deposit ratio at 48%. Net interest margin rose to 18.9% for the first 9 months, while maintaining a healthy portfolio with an NPL ratio of 6.3%. Maya continues to expand its fintech ecosystem through product innovation and strategic partnerships. Maya launched Maya Black, its premium credit card in quarter 3, receiving a very strong response from the customers. Around 40% of Maya Black cardholders are first-time credit users, underscoring Maya's role in democratizing credit access to Filipinos. Maya also launched an innovative personal loans product in the previous quarter that incentivize users to make periodical savings habit by offering higher rates. Maya is also leveraging its relationship with established businesses like Cebuana Lhuillier to expand credit to unbanked customers through over 3,500 branches and 25,000 agents nationwide. In summary, Maya's strong growth across payments, deposit lending reflect the power of a fully digital integrated ecosystem. PLDT continues to mark progress in its sustainability journey as manifested in its latest ESG ratings, which continue to register improvements as you will see on the slide. We continue to align with global best practices, and we have started to take part in global conversations. At the Climate Week in New York, PLDT and Smart represented the Philippines at the United Nations Global Compact Leaders' Summit, which we showcased a homegrown innovation that integrates localized mapping of natural hazards and remote monitoring of network facilities into a single visual dashboard. We were also featured in the Philippines 2025 Voluntary National Review presented by the Department of Development, highlighting the country's progress on sustainable development goals. Other highlights during the quarter includes a workshop with our supply chains where we cascaded our biodiversity policy, particularly in the context of network rollouts. Smart also secured a PHP 2 billion green loan with proceeds to be used to accelerate the rollout of our 5G network nationwide, which is more energy efficient. Now that concludes our prepared remarks for PLDT's 9 months results. We're now open for questions.

Thank you so much, Danny, for your insights. Before we open the floor to your questions, allow me to reintroduce our business leaders in the room. I'd like also to recognize our COO, Mr. Butch Jimenez; Aayush Jhunjhunwala of Maya. The CIO of Maya has also joined us as well. And just to remind everyone, those who are in the room with us are our Head of Consumer Business Home, Mr. John Palanca; our Head of our Enterprise business; Mr. Blums Pineda; ePLDT and Vitro President, Viboy Genuino; our OICs for Smart, Lloyd Manaloto and Marjorie Garrovillo. Of course, we have our CFO, Mr. Danny Yu; our Chief Legal Officer, Ms. Joan De Venecia-Fabul and our Corporate Secretary, Ms. Marilyn Victorio-Aquino. [Operator Instructions] The first question here is from Nicky Franco of Abacus Securities. This is for Maya. Given that Maya's lending was still strong in 3Q '25, what were the main drivers for the drop in net income for the period? Were there any one-offs that were attributed to this? Aayush, would you like to take that?

Sure, Jinggay. Thanks for the question. So there are a couple of factors that resulted in a slight drop. One was the slight impact of the removal of gaming links, the effect of which started to come in the August of 2023 as per BSP's direction. And secondly, as Danny mentioned, we launched Maya Bank Black Credit card. And as I mentioned in the previous call as well that we had launched our personal loans. So as we scale these longer duration loans, they will continue to have some provision -- some excess provision impact in the near to medium term before the -- until the portfolio matures. So these are the 2 sort of main factors for that.

Thank you, Aayush. All right. It looks like we also have some questions here from Arthur Pineda of Citi.

Several questions, please. Firstly, with regard to the KPA and the IRRs, which have been released by -- and signed by the President, how do you see this impacting your profitability as well as your investment profile going forward? I'm just wondering, do you see the new revenue opportunities as outweighing the revenue risks with regard to upcoming competition? Second question I had is with regard to mobile. I mean we've seen this has been -- it has been trailing that of your competitor for the third straight quarter. What's driving this difference in performance? Is there any issue that the company needs to work out? And the third question is on enterprise. You mentioned an uptake in government projects earlier. I'm just wondering, are you seeing sustained uptake into the fourth quarter, given that we've seen a slowdown in the broader macro momentum and government spending?

Thank you, Arthur. Okay. We have 3 questions here. Perhaps we can take your first question -- your second question first, which is on wireless. It's been trailing for a while. Is there any difference in performance that you'd like to highlight? So Marjorie or Lloyd, would you like to take this question?

All right. So for the wireless business, whilst we have been trailing behind Globe in actual revenue, when you actually review the growth rates, we could actually see that the Smart Wireless group has actually achieved a flattish growth rate for year-to-date 2025 versus Globe. It's actually more of a negative. Number two, the actual Q3 achievement versus last year, Smart is also ahead, right, versus Globe. Now what's interesting is that what we've actually managed to do is using tools like hyper targeting, we actually have been able to secure higher quality subs space so much so that our ARPUs for Smart have actually improved. So we're actually at a positive 2.5% on our ARPU for Smart versus Globe, for example, which is at negative 5.5%. We do believe that with tools like this and actually focusing on how we could generate more positive growth, we should be able to at least stabilize and actually sustain our mobile resilience.

Also, I'd like to add to the fact that if you look at fixed wireless -- for example, on wireless network rapidly growing, and this is driven by our investment in 5G and investment in 5G devices. So that's one area we're also focusing on as a total portfolio because we see the bigger growth in that.

Thank you, Marjorie. Thank you, Lloyd. Let's take your question on Enterprise next in terms of the sustained uptick in the fourth quarter. Blums, would you like to take that?

Yes, sure. Thanks for the question, Arthur. So with PLDT Enterprise, yes, we are seeing the continued momentum, as we mentioned before, into the fourth quarter and also into early Q1. As you can imagine, some of the nature of the projects will probably result in some slippage of award dates, et cetera, which is quite normal. But we're seeing still that level of investment and activity. There's a lot of -- across both national government agencies and LGUs, continued demand here that we're serving on both the connectivity and the ICT side.

Can I add to that?

Yes, of course.

Just, I guess, a couple of insights on where the government is going to land in terms of sustaining their investments in digital connectivity. Of course, I can't speak for the government at this point in time. But generally, what we see is that they are going to continue their trust and their investments in being able to connect the Philippines digitally. I don't see that slowing down. And I think that after realizing that they've spent too much on flood control, they've started to sense that maybe they should start shifting some of that expense or that spend to other areas and digitizing or providing digital connectivity to various aspects of Philippine society is something that they are talking about prioritizing. So first, let's talk about data centers. The government or PBBM has already given the DICT an order for public sector data sovereignty. That becomes a big driver for the enterprise group in terms of possible revenues in the future, principally because we do have the biggest data center in the Philippines, and we are the only ones at this point in time that can provide GPU as a Service leading towards AI. Aside from that, the GIDA site investment or initiative of the government has just finished its bidding. PLDT, Globe has gotten its fair share of rolling out in GIDA sites. So that is going to add revenue for our company, at the same time, continue the investments of the government in connectivity. Now tomorrow, I will be presenting to the PSAC, the Private Sector Advisory Council, a couple of more initiatives to digitize state universities in the Philippines and the other one is health care centers in the Philippines. So it looks like they are realizing that we are far behind our Asian or ASEAN neighbors when it comes to digital connectivity, and it's one of the priorities that I think the President and the government is going to push forward in 2026 and beyond. So looking forward to a sustained investment of the government in connectivity.

Thank you, sir, Butch. The last question, which is on Konektadong Pinoy. Marilyn MAVA would you like to take this one?

Lot of opportunities. It's difficult to assess the opportunities right now because this is the first country where they are going to roll out the open access for all assets model. So we don't know in what shape or form it will -- it will basically be form in the Philippines. But aside from that, if there are new players that are with the vision and philosophy that allows them and are committed to invest in the Philippines, invest in new infrastructure that will complement and supplement our network, that is an opportunity that we can consider because it will strengthen our network together. And we may be able to improve the connectivity for the entire country and maybe that will help in the vision of the connecting Filipino to have more connectivity even in the GIDAs area and also improve the Internet connectivity in the entire country. But that requires -- but that is something that we can find an opportunity that we can explore and exploit and create new partnerships around that. But if it is pure access, it's hard to assess the opportunity right now because we don't know how it will be rolled out in the Philippines, the open access for all assets.

So no indications on the IRRs based on what's been signed by the President so far?

I'm sorry?

Indications on -- how we feel about the IRR?

Well, how we feel about the IRR. Mr. Pangilinan answered that earlier in the media briefing. Maybe Jinggay will read his answer.

Sure, sure. So he had a very -- he had a statement earlier that he shared with the media. So I'll just quote what he mentioned, and I'll share it with you, Arthur. So when he was asked about PLDT's overall view on the final IRR, he answered by turning the question around, right? Do we think that the law as written actually achieves what it's set out to do, cheaper Internet for all, wider coverage, more infrastructure because the law and its IRR right now do not impose any obligation on new entrants to build infrastructure. There's no requirement to start in geographically isolated or disadvantaged areas. And there is no service obligations to ensure coverage or quality. And if you recall, in the Ramos administration, there was a sound model under the service area scheme, where telcos were assigned specific regions and targets like reaching the number of households to be connected, right? And that created real infrastructure build-out at that time. And the Konektadong Pinoy law, on the other hand, does not have such provisions. So really, the question remains on whether it will truly deliver on its promises. So that was the statement shared by MVP earlier on the IRR. All right. We have another hand raised from Ranjan Sharma.

My questions are related to the KPA as well. Can you help us understand what -- how the wholesale access pricing mechanism is going to be set? When you're being asked to open up your network, on what basis are wholesale access prices that you would be charging any access seekers? Is this completely on commercial terms? Is there a cost model associated with it? And the second question is on the spectrum. I think there's also spectrum management provisions as well, which includes clawback of underutilized spectrum. Can you help us understand how that might impact the industry as well?

Yes. In terms of the pricing, I don't think there has been any specific model that was shared in the IRR, right? The way it was drafted was that the incumbents are to submit our price list in the reference access offer and that will be reviewed by the regulators to determine if it is fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory. So I think there's really no specifics at this time, Ranjan, on using any specific model.

Maybe I add to that. In fact, it is not clear to us because we already have open access, bilateral contractual commitments, right. We do open access on a contractual basis. But it's not clear to us, for example, whether or not the pricing that we have assumed based on voluntary contracts with counterparties will be the same price that will be approved by the regulator. And there is also a provision in the IRR, which says if it's a significant market player, then the regulator may scrutinize your pricing. And what that means is not clear to us, whether or not significant market players will be required to price down their offering compared to contractual commitments that they entered into before Konektadong Pinoy. It's not very clear to us. So on the spectrum underutilization, is that the question?

Spectrum management provisions, how we see this impacting our business?

Well, it will have an impact on the business, but please appreciate that right now, there is no standard for underutilization. It really depends on how you use the spectrum. If you use the spectrum as a macro site, the utilization might be different. If you use the spectrum to cover that basically blind spots or if you use it to have continuous trouble, the utilization would be different. And so the spectrum management policy is intended to, I think, come up with that. And hopefully, there will be a consultation with the stakeholders like us, who are using the spectrum. And hopefully, there will be a transition period if they set -- if they define, for example, underutilization as such, then the next day, they will start recording the spectrum that might not be fair because it's basically a totally new definition of underutilization, which we are unable to comply, if the next day, they will start recording. So that is what's not clear. But I think they will have a period from the effectivity of the IRR to come up with a spectrum management policy framework, but that's not very clear right now.

Okay. Looks like we have some questions here as well from [indiscernible]. So 2 questions on net debt. You mentioned that net-debt-to-EBITDA will be reduced to 2x, which year is this expected to be achieved? So that's the first question. Second question, net debt to EBITDA is increasing a lot faster than net profits. Where is the -- where in the business is that going into?

We continue to spend on IT network rollout and data center development. So that's where the EBITDA -- that's where the debt go to now. With respect to projection, I think it will be about 3 to 4 years from now going to the 2.0. But certainly, I think the positive news is that we finally achieved positive free cash flow as of September, ahead of our forecast in 2026. That's one good news. And we hope to sustain this with lower CapEx moving forward as well as with our monetization program.

And we also have a question related to that regarding our positive free cash flows, how confident are we that we can sustain this into 2026?

We're confident because we will have lower CapEx moving forward, again, as mentioned earlier, because of our asset monetization program.

And also, this is a common question that was sent to us earlier. Any updates on the current asset monetization programs, namely the data center stake sale as well as the copper sales?

On the data center, we're currently in talks with prospective investor, who intends to take around 49% of the business. At the same time, we're also exploring the possibility of doing a REIT listing for our data center, just in case the other falls true.

Thank you, Danny. All right. We have another question here from John Te of UBS.

Two questions. First is on the fixed broadband net adds, quite strong, 95,000 compared to your run rate of 70,000 in the first half. So how much of this was prepaid? How much of this was postpaid? And what drove the acceleration there?

[indiscernible], would you mind taking this?

So thank you for the question. Yes, we've actually been able to build up the install rates over the last quarter. We leased up not just our channels, but our installed team. So we're able to gather more. I can't -- all I can say is that in the third quarter, we've seen more than a threefold increase in the prepaid subscriptions. And we're doing this in a very different way. I think I mentioned in the previous quarter that while we are growing the pie to ensure that the ARPUs remain at the high level and not cannibalize postpaid, our acquisition of prepaid has been very targeted to areas where prepaid applies. So growing the pie from Tier A and Tier B municipalities to what is now probably Tier C and probably opportunities is very selective. So we will not be seeing the same volumes, but what we will be seeing are the quality subscribers who have the high propensity to top up. We -- as mentioned from the beginning of the year, we have grown more than 3x already, 3.3x to be exact. And once we're ready to release the figures, I think we have a sizable market -- rather subscriber base on prepaid, then we will do so. So at the moment, the majority of it is coming from our postpaid acquisitions.

Okay. A quick follow-up on for -- maybe for Danny. On depreciation, there was PHP 2-plus billion charge in 9 months, but safe to assume that most of it came from the third quarter. And the related question on interest expense, given that debt really hasn't changed, but there was a spike on year-on-year interest expense. Would this mainly come from, I guess, leases for towers, et cetera?

I'll take the second question first. The reason for the increase in interest is mainly due to increase in the weighted average rate by around 49 basis points. That's one. The second reason for that is that also increase in the weighted loan average by around PHP 19 billion compared to the previous year. So that's for the second. What was the first question again?

Accelerated depreciation of PHP 2.6 billion...

It's mainly retirement of legacy assets as well as modernization of our IT and network core system and the accelerated depreciation is a fast-paced capital-intensive industry, and it's rapidly changing. So we have to continually review the economic life of these assets.

And most of it occurred in the third quarter, right?

Yes, in the third quarter. I think we recorded that in July of this year.

Okay. So some questions that were sent in as well. This one is for Enterprise. You recently launched SmartSafe as well as Pilipinas AI. How do you see these contributing to your revenues moving forward?

I'll tackle SmartSafe and I guess I have Vitro President of ePLDT and Vitro, Viboy Genuino will tackle the Pilipinas AI announcement. So on the SmartSafe, yes, we have actually been bringing this to customers already even in Q3, but we did a commercial launch just last week. Basically, with SmartSafe, this takes advantage of specific technology on the Smart network that makes it as secure for someone to have a transaction on a mobile app that's enabled for this so that they don't need an OTP. So it's a very seamless log on, but also just as secure as an OTP type motion. You bypass the risk of your OTP being intercepted, et cetera, which is very common nowadays. From a revenue standpoint, of course, this is a capability we need to work with other B2B companies that have app, so the banking, government apps, et cetera, for them to build this into -- very simple to do it -- for them to build it into the next release of their app. So that's a motion that's happening now. We're quite excited that we have several institutions with apps that are interested in this and looking to launch it as soon as possible. So we'll keep the team posted in terms of what that is. Turning over to Viboy.

Yes. Thank you, Jinggay, for the question on Pilipinas AI. So yes, we launched this in the third quarter of this year. And the basic concept is to be able to offer a platform for enterprises to be able to run AI use cases. The main issue of enterprises now is that they want to run AI use cases or proof of concepts, but they don't know how to utilize it and how to build the infrastructure around it. They have to source for the GPUs. They need to talk to a staff provider. They need to talk to a data center. They need to provide the connectivity and the cybersecurity requirement. We're basically taking this pain point away from the customer and letting them run these different applications on a ASU model wherein they can run the POCs on an hourly, daily, weekly or a monthly view. And we've seen a lot of interest coming from enterprise customers, who really want to experiment and run AI use cases. So we're very happy to be able to offer this service to our customers. We're the first company in the Philippines to actually bring in NVIDIA H200 GPUs, the most advanced GPUs of NVIDIA currently, and we're seeing a lot of interest in it.

Thank you Viboy. This question is from [indiscernible]. And this question is for Danny. Noting that your debt levels have increased this year despite continuous lower CapEx guidance. Is this mainly for refinancing? Increased net debt despite lower CapEx guidance. So is the increased debt because of mostly refinancing? Or is there -- are there new...

Mostly refinancing. Yes, mostly refinancing.

All right. And from Tony Watson, any thoughts -- this is for Aayush. Any thoughts that you can share on a potential Maya IPO or spin-off?

I think we'll stay clear of that. I think we are focused on driving the business and any IPO decisions, et cetera, will be led by the shareholders. But we, as management, are sort of fully focused on just executing and scaling our products.

Thank you, Aayush. Just doing a last scan for questions here. If there's any from the floor. Okay. It looks like there are no further questions. With that said, I'd like to thank everybody for your time today and joining us for our 9-month briefing. If you have any further questions that you'd like to send to us, please feel free to reach out to us via e-mail. And with that said, we look forward to presenting our full year results by February of next year. All right. Thank you, everyone. Have a good afternoon.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations here at PLDT, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to our first half financial and operating results briefing. Joining us today to share insights into PLDT's performance and strategic direction are PLDT Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Butch Jimenez; PLDT Financial Officer, Mr. Danny Yu; PLDT Corporate Secretary, Marilyn Victorio-Aquino; PLDT Chief Legal Counsel, Attorney Joan De Venecia-Fabul; PLDT Head of Consumer Home, Mr. John Palanca; PLDT Head of Enterprise, Blums Pineda; PLDT President, [indiscernible]; and PLDT Treasurer, Leo Posadas. Later during the call, we will also be joined by Smart Communications Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Boy Martirez. Go ahead, Danny.

Yes. Good afternoon, everyone. Allow me to present PLDT's first half 2025 performance covering key results and business highlights. Our service revenues net of interconnection costs reached PHP 97.1 billion, a touch higher year-on-year. EBITDA came in at PHP 55.5 billion, up 3% from last year. EBITDA margin remained steady at 52%. This was supported by steady growth from our fiber and disciplined cost management. Cash OpEx subsidies provisions [indiscernible], 3%, reflecting continued spending discipline. Telco core income landed [indiscernible], down 4%, mainly due to higher depreciation and financing costs [indiscernible] investment in our network in infra to improve quality of service. Core income, on the other hand, reached PHP 17.6 billion, up 1%, lifted by Maya's positive earnings. PLDT share in Maya's core earnings amounted to PHP 406 million in the first half, its first profitable semester, marking a PHP 1.1 billion turnaround from the PHP 693 million loss last year. This strong result reflects continued growth in deposits, lending and payments volume. In summary, we delivered stable core results and maintained our EBITDA margin, driven by careful cost management and ongoing revenue growth in key areas. PLDT service revenues remained stable, driven by sustained demand across 3 segments: Mobile data, fiber, corporate data and ICT. Starting with Home, revenues grew 4% year-on-year, reaching PHP 30.4 billion, led by strong steady fiber demand. Enterprise was slightly lower at PHP 23.5 billion, down 1% due to continued declines in legacy businesses. Positively, corporate data and ICT revenues held steady despite last year's closure of affordable connectivity. Within these segments, ICT stands out growing 15% year- on-year to PHP 3.2 billion. While our connectivity business is in transition, we continue to build a pipeline of new opportunities powered by emerging tech solutions. Turning to Individual, revenues totaled PHP 42.3 billion, slightly down in part due to weaker legacy offerings. Mobile data [indiscernible] to PHP 37.4 billion, now making up 89% of the segment's revenues. We remain encouraged by the robust adoption of 5G and the continued increase in data usage, supporting future growth and better [indiscernible]. Overall, mobile data and fiber and corporate data ICT now represent 90% of our total revenues versus 88% last year, more than offsetting legacy declines. Excluding legacy services, total net service revenues rose by 3%. Now let's take a closer look at the Home segment. Home revenues grew 4% year-on-year to PHP 13.4 billion, led by strong fiber demand. Fiber revenues reached PHP 29.5 billion, up 7% versus last year and now make up 97% of total home revenues. Subscriber momentum remains strong with 169,000 net fiber adds in the first half, over 3x higher than last year's 50,000 net adds. This growth reflects the impact of our accelerated port rollout program. We continue to lead in ARPU and churn. ARPU held steady at PHP 1,485 for the semester, the highest in the industry. Churn improved quarter-on-quarter, a testament to network reliability and brand strength. Our bundled offerings also continue to resonate while over 80% of new subscribers opted for higher value [indiscernible] PHP 1,299 and above. These integrated broadband mobile and content bundles help drive customer stickiness and support revenues. Enterprise revenues for the first half reached PHP 23.5 billion, slightly down by 1% from last year due to known headwinds. This includes the full impact of lost POGO connectivity as well as lower public sector deal closures tied to the May elections and leadership changes in government agencies. We expect these delayed awards to be booked in the second half. Corporate data and ICT remained stable at PHP 17.4 billion and now account for 74% of total enterprise revenues. ICT continues to be a bright spot with segment revenues up 15% year-on-year. Data center colocation grew by 36%, while cybersecurity services expanded by 24%. Other growth areas include fiber, up 4% year-on-year; SD-WAN up 19% as demand for secure flexible enterprise connectivity continues to rise. We also saw meaningful traction from Asia Direct Cable, which supported high bandwidth deal closures with hyperscalers and carriers in the second quarter. While connectivity revenues are in transitional phase, our broader enterprise business remains resilient, supported by advanced digital solutions and a growing customer pipeline. In April, PLDT through its data center arm VITRO, inaugurated VITRO Santa Rosa, the country's first operational AI-ready hyperscale facility and the largest in our portfolio. This rated 3 certified mega facility delivers 50 megawatts of power capacity and houses over 4,500 racks built to meet the stringent requirements of enterprises, hyperscalers, the public sector and AI workloads. The facility now hosts live NVIDIA GPUs powering ePLDT's AI solutions, giving Philippine enterprises [indiscernible] to on-demand, high-performance AI computing without the heavy capital cost of building their own infra. As the country's first true AI enabler, VITRO offers low latency and the computing skills needed for enterprise to innovate and compete. VITRO continues to deliver strong growth with colocations revenues up 36% in the first half, driven by a 19% increase in rack deployments across our data center network. With VITRO Santa Rosa and our broader ecosystem, PLDT is building the infra backbone to position the Philippines as a regional hub for digital services and AI innovation. Individual revenues reached PHP 42.3 billion for the first half, down 1% from last year, reflecting continued drag from legacy services and a softer second quarter. Mobile data revenues were stable at PHP 37.4 billion, making up 89% of the segment. While Q2 was slightly slower, we continue to see healthy data usage and stickiness from our customer base. ARPU have remained broadly stable despite competitive pressures, thanks to our hyperpersonalized offers that match customer needs while helping us manage marketing costs more efficiently. Total mobile data traffic grew 5% year-on-year to 2,766 petabytes, supported by the continued rise in 5G adoption. 5G traffic surged 84% versus last year and 5G [indiscernible] devices now make up 17% of our base, up from 11% a year ago. This reflects network improvements and the impact of affordable 5G device offers. Another bright spot is fixed wireless. With the introduction of our new 5G modem, we saw revenues from this segment growing 12% year-on-year, driven by the strength and reliability of our 5G network, especially in areas where fiber is not yet available. We remain focused on giving customers the best experience, not only in network quality, but also in how we design products that match their preferences and needs. This approach allows us to maintain ARPU, spur demand and increase loyalty. Innovations remain a key lever as we took shape the next phase of growth. To share more about our latest digital initiatives targeting younger Filipinos, I'd like to turn it over to our Smart COO, Mr. Boy Martirez.

After months of hard work by our internal teams and technology partners, it is my pleasure to present to you the first of a series of innovations that we have embarked on, our [indiscernible] mobile service called KiQ. KiQ is the Philippines first and only app-based mobile service that offers a personalized digital telco experience. KiQ is also one of the first in the world to offer such groundbreaking experience. KiQ is our ode to the Gen Z market. The Gen Z between 19 to 20 years old is this young generation redefining how they live, share and stay connected. They are disruptors, and we've seen their influence in powering the results of our latest Philippine elections. Their rebellious yet authentic nature, their ability to know exactly when to swipe left or to double tap, make up a generation that will never compromise freedom control. With this in mind, we have built KiQ, a mobile experience that gives Gen Z complete freedom and flexibility to personalize and control their mobile journey on their own terms. With the KiQ app, users can build their own plan, choose their own data allocation, choose their call and text inclusions, choose their numbers, choose their validity period and more, unlocking a very personalized experience for Gen Zs. It's my pride to show you our television commercial that was launched last Sunday. [Presentation]

There will be more innovations that we will be introducing. In fact, the ink hasn't even dried up on this innovation that we launched last Sunday. We'll be launching another one this coming Monday. So stay tuned.

Thanks, Boy. As we continue to innovate on the product side, we're also staying focused on disciplined cost management. Now let me walk you through our operating expenses. Total cash OpEx, subsidies and provisions for the first half came in at PHP 41.6 billion, down PHP 1.4 billion or 3% from the same period last year. Breaking it down, compensation and benefits, excluding MRP, declined by PHP 900 million or 8%, helped by ongoing rightsizing efforts. Selling and promotions were down 22%, reflecting better campaign targeting and improved spend efficiency. Subsidies fell 21%, mainly due to lower device issuance and better control on subsidy per unit. On the other hand, repairs and maintenance rose by 4% to PHP 15.6 billion, driven by network expansion and new site rollouts. Overall, the 3% year-on-year reduction in cash operating expenses highlights our ongoing efforts to optimize spend while ensuring support for growth areas like fiber, mobile data, enterprise ICT and digital innovations. For the first half, consolidated EBITDA reached PHP 55.5 billion, up 3% year-on-year despite flattish top line growth and known headwinds. This reflects the resilience of our business model with earnings supported by a stronger mix of fiber, ICT and personalized mobile offers. This growth was driven mainly by lower OpEx with total cash OpEx down by PHP 1.4 billion or 3% year-on-year. Our EBITDA margin held steady at 52%, underscoring our ability to defend profitability in a competitive market. This stability gives us a strong platform heading into the second half, where we expect additional upside from enterprise deal closures and traction from new product launches. Telco Core income for the first half came in at PHP 17.2 billion, slightly lower year-on-year as higher depreciation and financing costs weighing on the results. That said, a clear bright spot is Maya, which delivered PHP 406 million in core income, its first profitable semester and a meaningful turnaround from a loss last year. Maya has now cemented its position as the largest digital bank and merchant acquirer in the country. Its gamified all-in-one ecosystem continues to attract, retain, grow users creating a profitable and sustainable financial platform that is now materially contributing to PLDT's core income now and moving forward. Including Maya's contribution, consolidated core income rose to PHP 17.6 billion, up 1% versus the same period last year. Reported income was slightly lower at PHP 18.1 billion, mainly reflecting lower net ForEx and derivative gains. We'll share more on Maya's performance and growth momentum in a dedicated section later in this presentation. Now let's move on to CapEx and our debt profile. CapEx for the first half of 2025 stood at PHP 27.4 billion. We're now guiding full year CapEx of about PHP 63 billion, lower than our original guidance of PHP 68 billion to PHP 73 billion. This reduction is not due to scaling back our efforts, but rather the result of more favorable pricing and negotiated terms with vendors and suppliers. We remain focused on network quality and expansion with continued momentum in new site rollouts, LTE and 5G upgrades, fiber port builds and investment in submarine cables and AI infra. We're also investing in AI-ready data center and upgrades that improve service quality and long-term efficiency. CapEx intensity for the first half declined to 26%, in line with our plan to bring down the ratio down and support stronger free cash flow. As of end of June, our net debt stood at PHP 282.6 billion with a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 2.57x. Our interest cover remains healthy at 3.52x, giving us ample headroom to manage debt service. We have continued to manage maturities proactively with 55% of our debt maturing beyond 2030 and only 5% maturing in 2025. U.S. dollar-denominated debt is modest at 13% with only 5% unhedged. Our overall debt portfolio remains diversified with a balanced mix of fixed and floating rates and an average tenure of 6.4 years. We remain investment-grade rated by both S&P and Moody's, underscoring confidence in our fundamentals and risk profile. We maintain our guidance of returning to positive free cash flow by 2026 and are working toward our target net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 2.0x over a medium term. The Board declared an interim cash dividend of PHP 0.48 per share earlier today, in line with our regular payout policy of 60% of Telco Core income. This corresponds to a Telco Core earnings per share of PHP 0.80 for the first half and reflects our commitment to stable shareholders' return while managing leverage. Based on PLDT's closing share price as of June 30, the 12-month trailing yield stands at about 8%. Now let me discuss Maya, the fintech -- rather the #1 fintech ecosystem in the Philippines comprising of Maya, the leading digital bank and Maya Philippines, the top omnichannel payment processor. What makes Maya unique? It is a fully integrated platform that unites digital payments, banking and lending for both consumers and businesses. This creates a powerful flywheel, more users drive more transaction, generating richer insights, enabling better product adoption and ultimately delivering scale and profitability. These strong network effects are firmly established across both consumer and business segments. Next, Maya remains the Philippines' #1 digital bank and leading payment processor in [indiscernible] and QR merchant payments. As of June 2025, Maya had 8.2 million customers, 2.1 million borrowers, PHP 50.4 billion in deposit and PHP 150 billion in total loans disbursed since inception. In 2Q of 2025, Maya posted its second consecutive quarter of sustainable profitability with PHP 582 million in net income, a growth of 60% over the first quarter of 2025. Now let me now break down Maya's banking performance. Maya's deposits rose to PHP 50.4 billion by end of June, up 54% year-on-year, showing sustained growth and stronger customer trust. Loan disbursement hit PHP 32 billion in Q2, up 147% year-on-year, bringing total life-to-date disbursal to PHP 152 billion across consumer loans, MSME loans and partner-led loan channeling. Outstanding loans grew to PHP 25 billion, raising LDR to 49% and boosting net interest margin to 20.2%. NPL inch up to 5.2% with new products and services, but these remain healthy. Maya also expected to stabilize as the portfolio matures. In summary, Maya is unlocking the full value of its platform by linking consumer and merchant ecosystems. Maya recently launched the Maya Black credit card, a premium lifestyle card and the Maya Black Preferred Rewards program, giving cardholders up to 10x rewards within the ecosystem. Maya remains the only digital bank in the Philippines issuing credit cards with over 230,000 issued since August 2024, many to first-time users. Maya is also expanding credit access to partners like [indiscernible], JuanHand. In a sports strategic alliance such as the Landers co-branded card and Pulse [indiscernible] integration. With its ecosystem firing all cylinders, Maya is setting the pace for future of digital finance in the Philippines. Now allow me to cite a few sustainability highlights during the quarter. PLDT and Smart signed agreements with MPower to source additional renewable energy for operations. This will result not only in cost savings but also support our decarbonization road map. PLDT's progress in the area of sustainability is manifested in several recognitions. PLDT was again included in the FTSE4Good Index where our score was higher than the telecom industry, the mobile [indiscernible] center and country averages. Its PHP 2 billion social loan was cited as the Social Infra Deal of the Year by The Asset in 2025 in the ASEAN region category. During the quarter, PLDT submitted its communication on progress, which affirmed its commitment to the United Nations Global Compact's 10 Principles on human rights, labor, environment and anticorruption. The PLDT team was named the overall winner of the UNGC Innovation Accelerator for young professionals and will be the Philippines submission to the UNGC Leaders Summit in New York in September. More details of our initiatives can be found in the Sustainability section of this presentation. Now that concludes our prepared remarks for the first half of 2025. We appreciate your continued interest and support, and we would be happy to open the floor for your questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Danny and Boy, for all the valuable insights and growth initiatives as well as key developments that you've shared across our business units. As you've seen today, despite some near-term challenges, we remain confident in our market position, supported by our strong operational fundamentals, strategic investments in digital infrastructure and promising growth in Maya. Now we'd like to open the floor to your questions. [Operator Instructions] Looks like we have Arthur Pineda of Citi with a question here.

Two questions, please. Firstly, on mobile. I'm just wondering what's driving the softness in trends for wireless revenues? I mean if you look at the revenues, it's down slightly on a Q-on-Q basis, but 1Q was saddled with a lot of work and school outages. Why aren't we seeing the uplift in revenues? And any guidance into the third quarter with regard to these trends? Second question I had is with regard to regulation. Can you get an update on Konektadong Pinoy Bill? Is there a deadline for the President to sign this or amend or return to Congress? How do you see this as playing out?

I guess you can take the first question on mobile.

Arthur, may I just ask you to speak a little bit slowly so I can get the first part of your question?

It's about the softness in mobile, mobile trends. So quarter-to-quarter, it looks like there was some softness. First quarter did have some challenges regarding mobility. So he was asking if the Q had similar effects and also your outlook for the third quarter.

Okay. Well, the dip is a normal fluctuation. We see that as normal fluctuation, and we expect it to go right back up. And more importantly, in the second half, where our innovations sit, we expect to have a better outlook in the second half. And I guess that just outlines our view. First time around that we met Arthur, I remember you asked me what I would do differently. So the most important thing that I'd like to outline here is, although Smart is a tech company, we are also a consumer-centric company. And as a consumer-centric company, we aim to, therefore, delight the customer. Delighting the customer is based on the innovations that we have. And the innovations -- each innovation is going to deliver value for money. The value for money is going to be the driver of how we will get the revenues up and how we will do market repair.

Thank you, Sir Boy. For the second question on Konektadong Pinoy?

I'll answer that first one. The first question is when will it become a law, right?

Any deadlines for the President?

Well, by August 24, if the President has not returned the bill, it will become a law by the passage of time. And what's the other question -- that's it.

Do you have any follow-up questions on Konektadong Pinoy, Arthur, or just the deadline?

I'm just wondering how you see this? Will there be any amendments which could take place? Do you just see this as passing through to law? Or do you think it's likely going to stall?

Well, our hope is the President will return this. Will veto the law and allow the Congress to enact a bill that will replace it in consultation with stakeholders, including the telcos. And we were heartened by the fact that the office of the Deputy Executive Secretary for Legal Affairs sent a letter to Smart requesting opinion or the position of Smart with respect to the bill, whether or not the President should veto the bill or approve the bill and sign it into law. But up to now, we don't know where -- what will be the end position in this matter. But if in the event that the President signs it into law, allows it to lapse into law, then we have to -- we as telco will have to assert our right and bring our issues before the Supreme Court. We believe that there are several unconstitutional issues that's contained in the bill, including the discriminatory treatment in favor of data transmission providers and satellite providers because the bill allows data transmission providers and satellite providers to use spectrum without any franchise. And in that respect, the bill is also unconstitutional because it contains more than one subject. The rule in the Philippines and in most democratic countries is a bill can only contain one subject. This bill contains 3 subjects: One, open access; number two, spectrum, allocation of spectrum and recall of spectrum; and third, enjoyment of the spectrum and operating without the franchise. So we will raise those issues. The other -- but the most important point in this is the bill goes against what the world basically has implemented as open access. The standard for open access -- the ability of data transmission providers to access the assets of telcos is very broad. As long as it's necessary, then they will have the right to access, whereas open access has adopted in other countries, a very strict standard, which is the asset must be indispensable and must be essential for the provisional services of the data [indiscernible] providers. It's like -- I liken it to a right of way. If the access to the asset is a necessary right away for the provision of the services, then that is a fair access. But if it is an access which allows them to have basically access to all our assets and basically, they can conduct a business without building their own infrastructure, then that's almost confiscatory because our assets are being accessed and the law is requiring us to provide access to our assets that will be used by a private sector. It's not even for public use. So in that score, it is confiscatory and we're not even allowed to basically negotiate the terms of the access. And when you have that situation, when the law was intended to provide for the additional build of infrastructure in the Philippines for data transmission providers. But the law failed to impose an obligation to build infrastructure on the data transmission providers. Instead, they are given the right to access all our assets. So it's like a freeloader situation. And when that happens, who will suffer? Our subscribers will suffer and there will be a disincentive to build because you know how expensive it is to build. But as we build, we are not given the assurance that we will have exclusivity on use of the assets that we're building. And the signal of the law is the data transmission providers will have access over the assets that we will build. So it's a disincentive to build further improvements to the infrastructure of telcos in the Philippines. But the other most important point here is under the constitution, the state has the ability, has the power and the right to take over facilities of entities of businesses that are public utilities or whose business are viewed with public or national interest. That one will not be available for satellite providers because the bill allows satellite providers to get spectrum and operate without any franchise. So satellite providers are basically outside of the physical jurisdiction of the Philippine government. And so in our case, if the Philippine government needs our assets, needs to take over our operations in order to ensure that national security is protected, for example, [indiscernible] communications. They can just knock on our doors and send the police and take over. In the case of satellite providers that are given spectrum and are operating without any franchise by the government, that's not possible. And that is depriving the state of the power to protect itself. So those are some of the unconstitutional points that we will raise if the bill is passed into law.

We have another question here from [indiscernible] of Metrobank. Can you share some guidance regarding what we can expect from refinancing activities for the maturing debt? Do we expect any upticks in our rates? Perhaps Leo, our Treasurer can take this.

Thank you for the question. So currently, interest rates are still at high levels when compared to a few years back when we [indiscernible] our maturing debts. So as an indication, as of June, the cost of our debt is approximately [indiscernible]. Now admittedly, as we refinance debt, the interest rates are high -- still at higher levels right now the benchmark rates. But what we have done is that we've negotiated for the spreads to contract a bit. So from a high, let's say, 75 to 100 basis points to today's 40 to 60 basis points. Now aside from that, in order to address also the high interest rate environment, we are borrowing long-term facilities with floating rate structured price at the shorter end of the curve. Now this is also to take advantage of declining interest rates following the easing of central banks. So while they may be a little bit higher now, there is potential in the way we structured our refinancing facilities of floating rates at the shorter end that will give us the ability to also enjoy as interest rates go down.

Thank you, Leo. All right. Another question that we have here is in regards to our 5G cities. Any updates on 5G cities after the successful launch in BGC? Are there additional cities slated for this? And what can we expect in this coming year?

Yes. Glad to answer that. Following the success that we have in 5G cities, we have decided to start to propagate them in the provinces. So we have selected Iloilo, the Queen City of the South as the first beneficiary of that. We're putting 5G [indiscernible] we're testing it there. And so far, I'm glad to announce that there's been some good acceptance, particularly with respect to the fact that we started that with the sunsetting of our 3G spectrum.

And as a follow-up to that, since we are talking about 5G, are there any measurable uplift in terms of ARPU for these 5G cities also from 5G users moving up from LTE?

Thank you again for the question. Short answer, ARPU 5G is PHP 300. The ARPU LTE is PHP 101. So definitely be assured that there will be a revenue lift. And we are very, very focused in really implementing our 5G network.

Thank you, Sir Boy. This next question I got from quite a number of investors. This is in regards to our asset monetization plans. Are there any updates on the data center sale as well as asset sales on top of the data center?

Okay on the data center, we continue to receive inquiries from interested parties, and we also consider other options for data center. So until we have finalized -- we will advise you once we have finalized those deals.

And in regards to copper?

Yes. I think we mentioned that.

Okay. So for copper, we will announce -- so it's an ongoing...

Continues to be one of the priorities.

I think maybe I can give them an update on the asset monetization program on our legacy assets. We've created a robust program to be able to monetize all our legacy assets. We're beginning with our copper. That is now under negotiations. And so I don't think I can disclose generally the price and how much we're going to get. But suffice it to say that we believe that we will get a substantial amount for our copper. But over and above that, there's a full program on being able to monetize our other legacy assets. For example, we are starting to shut down 3G. There will be a lot of equipment that is related to 3G, which we will also now start to monetize. And then eventually, all our other legacy assets, we will start to monetize. So we have a program for that whole ecosystem of monetizing legacy assets.

This next question is for home business. This is in regards to prepaid. So it looks like there was some uplift in the press release regarding take-up on prepaid. Can you give us more color on your plans and how this fits in your portfolio?

Yes. Well, prepaid is our strategic entry point into an emerging market that consists of price-sensitive households as well as first-time fiber users. We do not see prepaid as cannibalizing postpaid. An emerging customer base is there for those households that are hesitant to a monthly commitment or never tried fiber and are still using older or slower technologies. Prepaid is the perfect way to onboard these customers. And our growth driver in the next 6 months of the year will come from these emerging -- well, it will come from 2 places. It's from deepening our penetration in areas where we have coverage. And secondly, it's entering into these emerging markets consisting of price-sensitive households as well as first-time fiber users.

Thank you, Jorn. I'd also like to recognize the presence of our Chairman and CEO, Mr. Manny Pangilinan. So if you have any questions, please feel free to put them through the queue of the Q&A box here in the Teams meeting. Also, you may send it to me by a Viber or you may raise your hand as well. This next question is for Enterprise. Enterprise revenues declined 1% year-on-year. That's despite the 15% growth in ICT. You mentioned that there were some delays due to the elections and the POGOs. Do you anticipate to return to growth overall in the second half.

Yes. Thanks for the question. Yes, there were definitely on the public sector side, especially, as you can imagine, in local government, some of those deals were sliding because of the May elections and then waiting for any new elected officials to be announced. And on the national government agency as well, as you will remember, there was a loyalty check, et cetera. So while we had some closed deals substantially on the national government agency side in the first half, some of them did slide. I think it was reported in the news that PLDT won an award for the emergency 911 services. It's the national program announced by the President in persona. So we're waiting for the notice to proceed on that, but we're pleased. I think that's a marker of things to come on that sector. Similarly, with private sector, same thing, I think. So we're pushing hard on these things and hoping that it will impact our results positively in the second half.

And as a follow-up to that, regarding the new services from BSR regarding GPU as a service, any color regarding how early demand is shaping up?

Thank you for that question. VITRO Santa Rosa remains the premier data center hub of the Philippines today, a 5-hectare site, 50 megawatts in terms of capacity, 4,500 racks. And it is the only AI-ready data center in the Philippines today. We are taking full advantage of that. We are the first company in the Philippines to actually bring in NVIDIA GPU servers. And this is meant to address the growing AI demand that we see in the enterprise space today. Customers now are moving from use cases to actual deployment of AI, and we are capitalizing on that demand that's coming in. So we're happy to be the digital infra provider for AI in the Philippines today.

Also, I'd like to let everyone know that we also have Aayush Jhunjhunwala of Maya. He is the CIO of Maya. So if there are any Maya-related questions from the group, you may also post those questions here. [Operator Instructions] It looks like we have a question from Derrick of CLSA. Jan Derrick Guarin CLSA Limited, Research Division I do have questions on Maya. I noticed that NIMs increased to 20%. Is it fair to say that the credit card rates have been driving this improvement? And if that's the case, is it also driving the uptick in NPLs for the period? And what could be the normalized NPLs? Then still in Maya, is it possible for you to share the split in net income between banking and merchant acquiring?

Derrick, thanks for those questions. So partly correct. The overall growth in NIMs has not just been because of increasing NIMs for credit card. Of course, that's a factor. We have launched credit card very recently. We have scaled up personal loans, which was launched late last year. So the continued growth of these 2 businesses, in particular, as they're longer tenure products will continue to have some near-term adverse impact on NPLs, but we expect those to stabilize relatively quickly. I think NIMs continue to increase as we increased our LDRs, and we'll continue to drive those up. So LDRs are driving up, individual product NIMs are improving. And so these 2 factors are going to continue to drive the NIMs up. I think for NPLs, we continue -- if you see, we are quite focused on managing the risk of the business, risk of the portfolio. We take great measures in making sure that the risk profile is acceptable. And so you can see that NIMs have only inched up slightly. And I think we should expect these levels, maybe marginally up from these levels. But within the year or so, it should start to stabilize a bit more. So that's what I can sort of talk about NIMs and NPLs. I don't think we can split out at this stage much more on the P&L. But you do get to see more robust financials on the Maya Bank, which should come out soon. And so it's effectively, we do announce -- we do release the consolidated net income. And so you'll be able to see the difference between the 2 businesses. Just to remind you that the payments business is not just acquiring. It includes all payment-related services. So that will include acquiring, which is obviously one of the largest business, but also consumer payments, which is consumer wallet and any other transactional revenue on the wallet.

Thank you, Aayush. We have a question from Zhiwei of Macquarie. Is there going to be any guidance on revenue and margins for the second half of 2025?

Guidance on the revenues [indiscernible].

Perhaps you can share something else perhaps maybe on core income.

We're still trying to hit the core income of last year. But we're slightly behind right now, but we're trying to hit the core income that we had last year.

We won't be able to provide more than that at this time as we continue to navigate the business, but we do wish to maintain our profitability, of course, and then hopefully shoot for higher net. Okay. Any other questions for the group as well as for Maya? This question here is for Home regarding innovation. So there are some innovations coming from the mobile side of things. Can you talk about innovations that you are pursuing for the home fiber business?

Thank you, Jinggay. Yes, we have been looking at a lot of, I guess, value-added content, but the initial mission for innovation is to make PLDT, the digital hub of every home. So what does that mean? So aside from connectivity, we are looking at -- we already have partnered with the big names in entertainment, like Netflix, MAX. We've partnered with smart home vendors like TP-Link and Eufy. Very soon, we will be partnering with a big name in the electronic gaming industry in Esports and console gaming. That will be launched very shortly. And we are also looking at partnering with mWell in order to provide health from the home. So these are the few things. We are building the smart home and IoT platform for every home to ensure that we are able to provide this integrated service to the home. Furthermore, there is still a market for connectivity, and you will be seeing in the market very soon, a no frills brand that we have launched. This should also help bring in our break into the emerging markets, and we hope to capture this incrementally. Again, we do not see these emerging markets of price-sensitive households or first-time users to cannibalize postpaid. Our postpaid proposition remains very strong. Our ARPU has held up despite the fact that we have entered these markets beginning in the last quarter of last year and booming in the first and second quarter of this year. So this is a very strong indication that even lower ARPU subscribers once they're in and they determine their data usage do tend to come back and upgrade their subscriptions to faster speeds or add more content, which is helping us preserve our ARPU. So in short, I guess that being said, it's very important that this -- making each and every home in the Philippines a digital hub for PLDT is our mission. And we intend to do that through IoT, through smart home, through entertainment and health, among other things.

Thank you, Jorn. We have a question here for Maya from Niki. Is there a target or optimal loan-to-deposit ratio for Maya Bank? And second question, any plans for further capital raising or perhaps even an IPO? What's the time line looking for that?

I think for the loan-to-deposit ratio, we are still reasonably below the industry standard. So we'll continue to drive those up. I don't think we have a very fixed target at this point in time, but we are still less than 50%. So there is ample room to continue to grow. We also have an ability to dial up or dial down the deposit growth. And so it really depends on the scaling of the lending book that will enable us to maintain a healthy LDR ratios. I think in terms of capital raise/IPO, I mean, we, at the company, continue to remain focused on scaling the business. We are solidly cash flow generative. We are profitable. So we don't need to raise external capital to continue to drive growth. And so that's a good thing. And I think as far as any IPO or any other strategic alternatives are concerned, I think we'll let the shareholders decide and take appropriate action at the right time.

Thank you, Aayush. Okay. Looks like we have just a minute or so left. There are some questions here in the queue. This is a question from Zhiwei on Maya. So how do you see loan disbursement continuing to grow in the second half of 2025? You're tracking about the same amount of loans made with GCash in the second quarter, Maya PHP 32 billion, GCash PHP 34 billion. Curious to understand where you're driving the loan growth from and whether you are in direct competition with the same market as GCash?

Yes. We have a very strong suite of products that we offer now between both consumer and businesses, starting with a Maya Easy Credit, which favors a consumer who has never taken a loan before. So first to credit customers. These are very short-term small ticket loans. Then we have personal loans where we graduate consumers for longer duration, larger ticket sizes. We have just launched credit card. We launched Landers credit card last year, and we've just launched our own self-branded credit card last week. So it's a very robust set of products, credit products for the consumers. And similarly, we have a working capital product for businesses, both for fixed duration as well as for installment loan. So there is no one particular product that is driving all the disbursal. It's a fairly diversified book. It's a fairly diversified disbursals, and we'll continue to see escalation across the board and growth across the board. We do focus -- just in terms of our customer segmentation, we do focus on mass affluent and above customers. We have a very, very millennials, Gen Z-focused customer base. And so that's our continued focus. There are many products that we offer. We are the only ones, for example, amongst the digital banks or lenders to have a credit card. So we do continue to differentiate and offer products suitable to our customer base.

Thank you, Aayush. Okay. It looks like that's about all the time that we have for today. So that concludes today's briefing, and I'd like to thank everybody for their time and continued support of PLDT. But before we end the meeting, perhaps I'd like to invite our Chairman and VP, if he has any closing remarks.

Thank you for joining us this afternoon. And when we announce our results, September, right? So we should see you in September with the third quarter results. Thank you.

In November. Thank you, everyone. If you have any other questions that you weren't able to ask today, please feel free to send them over. I'd be happy to get to you by e-mail. Thank you. Have a great day.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I'm Jinggay Nograles, Head of Investor Relations here at PLDT. It's my pleasure to welcome you to our first quarter financial and operations results briefing. Joining us today to share insights into PLDT's performance and strategic direction are Smart Communications Chief Operating Officer, Boy Martirez; PLDT Chief Operating Officer, Jimenez Jr.; PLDT Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Danny Yu; PLDT [indiscernible]; PLDT Chief Legal Counsel, Attorney Joan De Venecia-Fabul. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that we will have a Q&A session after the presentation. [Operator Instructions] To start, I'd like to invite our CFO, Mr. Danny Yu, to walk us through PLDT's financial performance for the first quarter.

Good afternoon, everyone. Allow me to present PLDT's first quarter performance, covering key results and business highlights. Our net [Technical Difficulty] slightly up year-on-year. On a gross basis, our revenue reached PHP 53.4 billion, up 2% from last year. EBITDA grew by 2% to PHP 27.9 billion, driven by continued strength in our fiber and ICT segments, coupled with prudent cost management. Telco Core income was recorded at PHP 8.8 billion, down 6% year-on-year, reflecting increased depreciation linked to recent strategic investment in network infra, coupled with related financing costs. Core income was steady at PHP 8.9 billion, driven by Maya's positive earnings contribution as it turned profitable this quarter. As we move forward, we will continue to pursue steady revenue growth, disciplined expense management, asset monetization, and prudent capital allocation. Net service revenue growth reflects stable demand across our key business segments, mobile data, fiber, corporate data, and ICT. Starting with Home, revenue rose by 4% year-on-year to PHP 15.2 billion, thanks to continued fiber demand. Fiber now accounts for 97% of Home revenues, up from 92% in 2024 as we steadily migrate legacy subscribers. In enterprise, total revenue remained steady at PHP 11.9 billion year-on-year with a slight 1% uptick in corporate data and ICT revenues. Within this segment, ICT stands out, growing 16% year-on-year to PHP 2.2 billion, now accounting for over 22% of enterprise revenues, up from 19% a year ago. Although our connectivity business is navigating a transitional phase, we are actively building a pipeline of new opportunities by leveraging our emerging technologies. Lastly, on mobile, revenues were down slightly at PHP 21.3 billion due to lower packet Wi-Fi usage as customers shifted to smartphones or fixed data access. Some prepared packages available in the first quarter of 2024 were also adjusted, leading to less headline growth but better fundamentals. We're also encouraged by rapid 5G adoption and a steady rise in data traffic, which point towards improved monetization and growth moving forward. Mobile data, fiber, corporate data, and ICT, which now account for 89% of total revenues from 88% in 2024, continued to expand, offsetting legacy revenue declines. Excluding legacy services, net service revenues grew by 2%. Now let's take a closer look at Home segment. Home revenue rose 4% year-on-year, reaching PHP 15.2 billion. This growth was mainly driven by fiber, which posted a healthy 7% increase to PHP 14.7 billion. Our shift from legacy to fiber is progressing well, with fiber now representing 97% of total home revenues, up significantly from 92% in 2024. We also added 101,000 net new subscribers this quarter compared to negative net additions a year ago. This improvement came from stronger network coverage and expanded port availability from recent investments. ARPU remained stable at around PHP 1,493, reflecting our success in bundling high-value products while managing churn effectively. Our churn rate of less than 2% remains among the lowest in the industry. Looking ahead, we will continue to expand our fiber footprint with targeted initiatives and diversified offerings. Turning now to Enterprise. The unit delivered steady results with total revenues at PHP 11.9 billion. Corporate data and ICT, on the other hand, improved by 1% to PHP 8.8 billion. This growth was tempered by the impact of lost connectivity as the industry shut down last year. That said, [indiscernible] business continues to perform well, growing at 16% compared to the same period last year. Managed IT services expanded 101%, cyber security services rose by 69%, credit scoring by 48%, and data center colocation revenues jumped 37%. As a result, ICT now makes up over 24% of our enterprise revenues to 19% a year ago. We're working on new opportunities, leveraging on [Technical Difficulty] network application programming and [Technical Difficulty]. Additionally, the recently activated Asia Direct Cable further strengthens our competitive advantage, enhancing international capacity and network resilience for enterprise customers. Turning to the individual segment. Total revenues came in at PHP 21.3 billion, down slightly by 1% year-on-year as we continue to see customers shift away from packet Wi-Fi towards smartphone-based data usage. Mobile data revenues, on the other hand, were stable at PHP 18.8 billion, impacted partially by the termination of long validity offers that front-loaded revenues in the first quarter of 2024. Despite relatively flat revenues, underlying trends remain encouraging. 5G data traffic surged 81% year-on-year. 5G device adoption also showed robust growth, up 60% quarter-on-quarter. The ongoing shift to 5G has significantly improved our network efficiency and freed up additional LTE capacity, resulting in a better overall customer experience. We expect this increased 5G adoption and improved network efficiency to help stabilize revenues and drive future growth in the individual segment. PLDT delivered PHP 27.9 billion in EBITDA for the first quarter of 2025, a 2% increase year-on-year, demonstrating our ongoing efforts in managing costs while maintaining a resilient revenue base. OpEx, including subsidies and provisions, declined by PHP 300 million to PHP 86.1 billion, reinforcing operational discipline. Our EBITDA margin remains strong at 52%. Telco Core income was at PHP 8.8 billion, lower by 6% year-on-year, mainly due to increased depreciation from network expansion and associated financing costs. Our core income, on the other hand, held steady year-on-year at PHP 8.8 billion, supported by Maya's positive contribution. A key highlight this quarter is Maya turning profitable, marking a significant milestone. Maya contributed PHP 127 million in net income, a clear turnaround from prior year's losses, powered by robust loan growth, strong momentum in deposits, and increased payment volume. Now let's move on to CapEx and our debt profile. For the first quarter of 2025, our CapEx stood at PHP 10.8 billion, lower compared to last year, resulting in a reduced CapEx intensity of 20%. This lower spend is partly due to timing as a significant portion of our project completions will occur in the second half of the year. Our CapEx guidance for 2025 is adjusted slightly to PHP 68 to PHP 70 [Technical Difficulty] to improve our quality of service. While we work on increasing CapEx, we are committed to deliver greater outcomes through efficient use of capital and strengthen negotiations with contractors and suppliers. Let's review our debt profile. Our net debt at the end of March stood at PHP 270.7 billion, resulting in a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 2.48x, slightly improved from 2.52x at the end of 2024. Our debt maturity profile remains well balanced, with 52% of total debt maturing beyond 2030. The average debt maturity stands at 6.5 years. We maintain prudent risk management. Foreign currency exposure remains low, with just 5% of total debt unhedged. Importantly, PLDT retains investment-grade credit ratings of BBB from S&P Global and Baa2 from Moody's, underscoring investor confidence in our financial health. Looking forward, we remain committed to generating positive free cash flow by 2026 and continue working towards reducing our leverage, targeting around 2.0x net debt-to-EBITDA ratio over the medium term. Now I'd like to shift gears and share some exciting developments from two of our key growth drivers beyond traditional Telco. One is VITRO, our state-of-the-art data center business, and Maya, our fintech driver, both continue to demonstrate strong momentum and reinforcing PLDT's commitment to innovation and digital leadership. Our VITRO data centers, particularly our newly energized hyperscale facility in Santa Rosa, represent a major strategic step positioning PLDT at the forefront of Philippines' digital infra landscape. Now let's watch this short video to give you a closer look at VITRO Santa Rosa and why we believe it is very essential in all this supporting the [Audio Video Presentation] The world as we know it is changing. Scaling, moving in hypergrowth a robust restructuring of every aspect of our lives through artificial intelligence, keeping in step with the Philippines' move to be the next digital destination of the region. This year, VITRO Incorporated unveils the Philippines' first AI-ready hyperscale data center, VITRO Santa Rosa, designed to power tomorrow's digital demands. VITRO Santa Rosa celebrates an impressive 50 megawatts of power capacity. This immense power ensures unparallel performance for enterprises, hyperscalers, and AI workloads alike. With a Tier-3 certification, VITRO Santa Rosa guarantees a 99.99% service level agreement that's true reliability you can count on. It's resilient power, cooling, and connectivity ensure your mission-critical operations never miss a beat. At its core lies a diverse network infrastructure equipped with a triple route domestic fiber network. VITRO Santa Rosa ensures continued operations with the longest latency and maximum resilience. Step into a thriving digital ecosystem where enterprise, cloud, and AI data seamlessly connect and synergize, where everything your business needs is within reach, and let your data takes center stage. And with it's AI-ready infrastructure, VITRO Santa Rosa is prepared to unlock the true potential of artificial intelligence. Hosted in VITRO Santa Rosa, ePLDT is the first to bring NVIDIA-powered GPU servers to the Philippines. ePLDT can now offer GPU as a service boasting of enhanced security and reduced latency ideal for critical AI tasks that require fast response times. With ePLDT's GPU as a service, enterprises and government agencies can access powerful computing on a pay-per-use basis, making AI adoption faster and cost-efficient. From training complex models to powering real-time applications, VITRO Santa Rosa is where AI thrives and connects to the rest of the country. Connected to the country's domestic and international fiber network, VITRO Santa Rosa serves as a gateway to the rest of the Philippines and the world. VITRO Santa Rosa isn't just a data center, it's the home of AI and hyper connectivity, carrying the digital future today. True infrastructure reliability, true AI capabilities, a first for the Philippines. This is VITRO Santa Rosa. As you have seen in the video, VITRO Santa Rosa represents a significant step forward, not just for PLDT but also for the Philippines' broader digital ecosystem. Officially inaugurated last month by President Marcos, this pioneering facility highlights our commitment to powering the nation's digital transformation. During the inauguration, President Marcos underscored that in today's world, data has become as essential as water and electricity. We emphasize the critical importance of continuously strengthening our data infra, particularly with safeguarding sensitive and confidential information. VITRO Santa Rosa is uniquely positioned to meet these demands, significantly enhances our ability to support the nation's digital growth. I'm also pleased to share another strategic infra milestone, the recent launch of the Asia Direct Cable. This new subsea cable spanning 9,400 kilometers significantly enhances PLDT's international connectivity. With a substantial 27 terabits per second capacity, the Asia Direct Cable offers unmatched low-latency connections, particularly between China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Japan. This further strengthens PLDT's position as the country's largest fixed-line network provider with the most extensive set of international gateway facilities. For PLDT, the investment translates to strategic advantages ensuring faster, more reliable, and direct access to our state-of-the-art facilities such as VITRO Santa Rosa. In short, the Asia Direct Cable is more than impact. It's a core enabler of future revenue growth, service reliability and market leadership. Now let's turn to another key growth engine, Maya, our fintech driver. Let me start by framing what makes Maya uniquely positioned for sustainable growth and profitability. The short answer is it's a unique all-in-one ecosystem that combines payment, banking, lending into a seamless platform for both consumers and businesses. This integrated model creates efficiency, scale, recurring engagement, which not only accelerates our growth but also strengthens our pathway to continued profitability. We believe that this comprehensive ecosystem gives Maya a clear structural advantage enabling it to capture long-term value while continuing to deliver innovative, inclusive financial services to millions of Filipinos. I'll now take you through Maya's performance for the first quarter of 2025. Here, you will see how this ecosystem approach continues to drive results across deposits, lending, payments, and customer engagement. In the first quarter of '25, Maya achieved positive net income. This marked its first full profitable quarter, a key milestone for its growth momentum. Maya continues to lead as both the #1 digital bank and the #1 merchant acquirer in the Philippines. The company has seen impressive momentum across key metrics. 6.8 million bank customers, up 88% year-on-year, reinforcing Maya's position as the most adopted digital banking platform in the country, 1.8 million borrowers, doubling year-on-year, driven by strong credit demand and AI-powered digital lending, PHP 44 billion in total deposits, representing a 49% year-on-year increase and maintaining Maya's leading deposit market share among digital banks. And finally, PHP 120 million in cumulative loans disbursed since inception. On the payment side, Maya also retains the largest market share in card acquiring transactions, reinforcing its leadership in both online and in-store merchant payments. This potent combination of scaling adoption, growing credit, healthy deposits and profitability reflects Maya's unique position as the Philippines' leading integrated digital banking and payments ecosystem. Now let me break down Maya's banking performance in more detail. The bank continues to see strong growth in consumer deposits, which reached PHP 44 billion by end of March, representing a 49% year-on-year increase. This is a clear indicator of user trust and consistent engagement on the platform. Since 2022, deposits have nearly tripled. Alongside this, Maya has also scaled lending significantly. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, it disbursed PHP 28 billion in loans, bringing total disbursed since inception to PHP 120 billion. Now loan book quality remains solid. Maya's loan outstanding balance stood at PHP 21 billion at the end of March, with asset quality well managed. Its NPL ratio was 3.8% below both digital banking and broader industry averages. All in all, Maya is not just growing. It's also do so responsibly with strong fundamentals in both deposit and credit performance. Maya's growth story isn't just about selling products. It's also about deepening engagement and creating a platform that enables our partners to access a tech-savvy, highly engaged customer base. In the first quarter of '25, Maya expanded its consumer platform through high-impact collaborations across lifestyle, entertainment, and insurance. Some examples include the following: the integration of PAL Mini application within Maya that offers users a more seamless travel and loyalty experience. Maya now provides accessible insurance products directly in the application through Singlife. All through our partnership with Pepsi-Cola, Maya is enabling both payment processing and working capital loans for their network of more than 200,000 sari-sari stores and distributors, partnered with ABS, CBN, and GMA for Pinoy Big Brothers celebrity edition. This campaign drove a 3% increase in viewership compared to previous seasons and significantly boosted in-app user activity via interactive voting features. Maya is also seeing strong traction in consumer credit. It has issued approximately 200,000 credit cards since its launch in August of 2024. These moves strengthen Maya's position not just as a fintech and digital bank, but as a daily financial partner, helping Filipino spend, save, invest and borrow. Now before we close out, I'd like to share some updates on sustainability as we continue to expand our efforts to embed this in our business. During the quarter, PLDT and Smart enacted biodiversity policies that commit to no net deforestation and no net loss in forest cover. As we roll out our network facilities, these policies ensure that we comply with environmental regulations and do not negatively impact the environment and local communities. PLDT and Smart continued to strengthen initiatives to keep our customers safe and protect children online. This includes access to malicious content. With the election of PLDT to the Governing Council of the Philippine Business Coalition on Women Empowerment and of our Chief Sustainability Officer to the Board of Trustees of the Global Compact Network Philippines, we have new opportunities to collaborate with like-minded institutions and champion sustainability in business. Now that concludes our prepared remarks for PLDT's first quarter performance. At this point, we would be happy to open the floor for your questions.

Thank you, Danny, for your insights on the growth initiatives and key developments across our different business units. As you've seen today, there are some near-term challenges, but we do remain confident in our market position, supported by our strong operational fundamentals, strategic investments in digital infrastructure, and promising growth trajectory in Maya. I'd like to open the floor to your questions. [Operator Instructions]. So we have a raised hand from Arthur Pineda of Citi.

Three questions, please. Firstly, on the Enterprise segment. You mentioned that there were some POGO-related revenue pressures in the first quarter, which is pulling it down. I'm just wondering, is this all done? Or do you still see further downturn from this segment? I'm basically trying to figure out if we should start to see enterprise accelerating into the following quarters, given the new capacities from data center and all? Or are there still some revenue pull from POGO cancellations? Second question I had is with regard to VITRO. Can you provide color on the take-up levels for the new capacities? Have you actually signed anchor tenants for this? I'm wondering how material the contribution could be for profits and revenues for the year? And third question is on Maya. Where do you see the profit momentum as trending for the balance of the year? Should we see this as further expanding on a hockey stick basis? Or is it a gradual improvement in terms of momentum?

Thank you, Arthur. Okay. So you have 3 questions here. I guess we can start with your question on POGO. We have Blums Pineda here, who heads our enterprise business.

Thank you for the question. So on the POGO, as I think you remember, POGO was shut down actually in July of last year. So from that standpoint, we're still anticipating a continuation of the impact, especially from a same period last year compare on POGO revenues as well as other connectivity programs that were discontinued over that time. So we should still see some drag maybe until about Q3. But I think when you look at the performance, a lot of the programs that the team has been running has helped us at least keep flat and make up a lot of that revenue gap. But there will still be some drag going into at least Q3. For the second part of the question, I will turn over to Alfredo Panlilio, who's the President and CEO of PLDT Metro.

Thank you, Blums. Thank you, Arthur, for the question. I'm happy to share that for VITRO Santa Rosa, we've actually landed a big hyperscale customer of ours that's already availing of 4 megawatts of capacity. Because it's the first hyperscale data center in the country, we've been getting a lot of interest from Western and Chinese hyperscalers as well. There are ongoing discussions with them together with some big enterprises to help fill up the capacity in Santa Rosa.

And for the question Maya [Technical Difficulty].

Thanks, Arthur, for the question. I think what we have seen is that we have been consistently reducing losses throughout last year and have now turned profitable. One of the reasons for that is that we have fairly strong operating leverage in the business. And so we should continue to see an increase in the margins and profitability as we continue to scale the business. I don't think you should expect a hockey stick growth, but a more sort of steady and gradual margin improvement over time.

Sorry, if I could just have one follow-up. It's with regard to the mobile business. I'm just wondering what the thoughts are into the second quarter. Obviously, first quarter was challenging, contracting year-on-year, Q-on-Q. I'm just wondering, your competitor has been communicating to the market that we've been seeing mobile improvements in the second quarter. Are you seeing similar trends?

Boy Martirez is here, who heads our Smart business. Go ahead.

We see that market has softened, but the more important thing that we are focusing on is that we continue to grow traffic year-on-year. And this gives us confidence in monetizing demand for the balance year. And our aspiration is to continue to be always better than last year. So that we will do through innovations and network [indiscernible].

I have a question here from Nicki Franco of Abacus Securities from the Q&A box. So the first question is on VITRO Santa Rosa ESG. So what is the rate of water usage for VITRO Santa Rosa? Will the local utility be able to supply the water required as it ramps up?

Yes. Thank you for that question. Well, so far, the water utilization level or utilization that we are tracking in Santa Rosa is still at normal levels, similar to other data centers. We expect the water usage to increase once we start onboarding AI-specific workloads, which would need to run on liquid cooling technology. We are in coordination now with the water utility to be able to anticipate and see whether we can already prepare for that eventuality. But so far, with regards to water usage utilization in Santa Rosa, it's still at normal levels.

Another question from Nicki, and this is in regards to Maya. Can you share interest income on loans as well as your cost of funds, also average loan tenor? Also, the loans disbursed in the first quarter amounting to PHP 28 million, include receivables from the credit card business.

I think we'll be limited in terms of exact disclosure of the numbers to some extent. But yes, the receivables do include the receivables from the credit card business as well. Yes. I mean, we do report numbers on a consistent basis on a quarterly basis. But at this point, I think it will be difficult for us to talk about loan yields and cost of funds specifically.

Do you have a target loan-to-deposit ratio?

Sorry, Jing, I couldn't hear you. I think you're cutting out a little bit. Could you repeat that question?

So this regards to the loan-to-deposit ratio of Maya, so [indiscernible]?

Yes. So we don't have a specific target loan-to-deposit ratio, but we will continue to keep a slightly conservative loan-to-deposit ratio versus some of the traditional banks. I think we are still sort of early days in terms of the stability of the balance sheet, and we do run a digital banking business. So I mean, there's no fixed sort of number, but we don't want to see the loan-to-deposit ratio at least in the near term, push very, very high like traditional banks.

I have a question here for the Home segment. PLDT added a significant number of subscribers this quarter. Do you anticipate this continuing at this pace for the rest of 2025? We have Jorn here who heads our home business.

Yes, we do anticipate the growth to sustain. In fact, we are looking at the growth path for the balance of the year. Our net adds has been improving, and we are launching several products and services in rapid succession in the next few months that would address not just elevating our experience, but also expanding our viewership. So the growth is not one-off. We've actually showed this in 5 quarters, a sustained growth at increasing increments every quarter, and we expect to sustain this until the end of the year.

I'll answer as well.

We have Butch Jimenez here, who is our COO. Go ahead, Butch.

Growth, I guess, aside from just looking at the growth, you really have to look at either we grow by postpaid or prepaid, because that is very significant with the increase in revenue. So PLDT from a strategic point of view, we're looking at growing primarily our postpaid product because that delivers higher ARPU, lower churn. We will also look at prepaid at a very strategic and deliberate level. But I think if you're going to compare us with other telcos, you have to compare not just the growth of subs, but you also have to compare postpaid versus prepaid. PLDT and Smart, we do have a 2-barrel shotgun to look at prepaid or to attack prepaid. Aside from prepaid home fiber, we also have fixed wireless that Smart is handling. So I think we have enough weapons to be able to attack the prepaid market effectively while making sure we continue to grow our postpaid market, which is really the bigger driver of revenue for fixed line telco.

As a follow-up to that question, we have another question on churn trends. How sustainable are these churn trends at current levels? Go ahead, Jorn.

Yes. Our churn has been showing improvement over time. We have seen, our growth has been driven not just by increasing our gross adds and net adds, but also by better managing our churn. Today, we do have the best industry churn rate at a sub-2 % level, and we will continue to improve that as we approach the [indiscernible]

This next question is for our wireless segment, specifically on 5G. It looks like 5G adoption has increased materially quarter-on-quarter. How is your 5G monetization strategy progressing? And any notable ARPU uplift from this?

Our focus is still on 5G and building a meaningful and dense 5G coverage, which is also reflected in our double-digit 5G traffic growth, and I think you will see that. And the other thing that I'd like to add is that, in fact, we have seen over 60% growth in 5G devices. And these 2 together would bode well for us in the coming months. We have seen, for example, a high double-digit growth in 5G traffic. And I can say with comfort that there's a good double-digit percentage of traffic in 5G that has been offloaded for 4G.

[Operator Instructions] There is a question regarding depreciation and financing costs. Can we expect depreciation and financing costs to continue increasing at similar levels? Or do we expect these to taper off moving forward? Danny, can you take that question?

It's going to be almost on the current level. If we're acquiring all. [indiscernible].

All right. On enterprise, I think this is in regards to the Asia Direct Cable. How is this expected to enhance your competitive advantage? Any quantifiable revenue impact from the go-live?

I'll take that. So direct cable, it is a big part of our competitive advantage. When you think about our top-tier facilities like VITRO Santa Rosa, locators are looking especially international ones, are looking for multiple legs to hubs across the region. So the fact, for example, that people look for Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong at a minimum, right? Asia Direct Cable addresses that very specifically. And with 27 terabits per second, that's the right levels for low-latency types of workloads and requirements. So a very, very big part of our strategy. It is not a stand-alone thing by any means, but it is a key enabler of the potential that we're driving to with our data center business.

We have John Te raising his hand of UBS.

Three questions from me. First is on the prepaid mobile business. There appears to be a softening of subscribers, particularly for Smart in the first quarter, though I understand that the market is soft, but anything unusual with regards to subscriber acquisition? The second question on the other hand, is on the postpaid side. And I think there is sustained growth momentum at the expense of your competitors. So I guess a bit more clarity on what you think is mostly driving this. The third is on the broadband subscriber trends. Sorry, I missed this earlier, but should we expect an acceleration in revenues beginning 2Q and 3Q given that the net adds in the first quarter were, I guess, stronger than what you've done over the past few quarters?

So I guess we can start with the question on prepaid mobile subscribers and the softening you said, quarter-on-quarter. Jorn, would you like to have some color on those numbers, please?

I think it's more -- to answer on the issue of subscriber base, I think more correct in under ARPU, overall ARPU is flattish while the market ARPU is declining 6% year-on-year. And to that extent, I wouldn't put a differentiation on postpaid and prepaid at this point, there's a blip that I see personally in that trend that we see in the rest of the industry. But in our case, our competitive differentiator is always product innovation, network experience and customer and digital experience. And that's what we're going to build on.

I understand also, if I recall correctly, that we did a little bit stricter regarding our -- when we churn out some of our prepaid, right? So I guess, Jorn, part of that is also a cleanup versus last quarter in terms of the number of subs. This question is still for you, Jorn, second question. He did note that we are gaining market share from our competitors. So he would like to basically gain a little bit more color on how -- I guess, what we're doing in order to gain that market share, and how sustained do you think that would be?

I think we attribute that more to our sustainable traffic growth for the last 9 quarters. And that's traffic is basically what drives monetization because when you have a growth in traffic, to have engagement, good customer engagement, and we're going to build on that. Year-on-year, we have grown 6% on network traffic while the market has declined by 5%. So that signals our success in capturing demand and user engagement. We are hopeful in translating this to revenues through our hyper-personalized offers that we are having and we continue to have. By the way, our hyper-personalized offers are based on best-in-class world technology like [indiscernible] in the U.S.

All right. Our last question, and again, this is in regards to our broadband subscriber trends. Jorn, I know you spoke on this a little bit earlier, but can you talk about what we have to look forward in terms of accelerating that.

Thank you for that question, John. John, the last few quarters, especially the last 4 quarters has been very encouraging. We've seen signs, very clear signs that we have a clear path to even more growth, sustainable growth at that. The important thing is that we keep this business on track, focusing on strengthening our core network and servicing the customer, focusing on elevating the customer experience and expanding our reach. As Butch mentioned, we are not just expanding our reach geographically, we're expanding it to reach more homes as well as more segments in the market. All this put together, focusing on this would also reduce our churn, customers tend to stay longer. And given that our business is hyper-focused on the postpaid side, we are seeing our ARPUs remain steady at the level 1,496 level from Q1 last year, which is a good sign as well that this has not been diluted despite the fact that we've loaded an additional 305,000 subs this March. So it's very encouraging for us and that we do see a clear path to revenue growth. Thank you.

Thank you, John. We have another question here in the Q&A box Zhiwei Foo from of Macquarie. Is there guidance for 2025 net income? And if not, why? It was adjusted to be provided at the first quarter results briefing during the full year 2024 briefing. Danny would you like to take that?

Given the softness of the numbers in the first quarter, I think we're unable to provide guidance at this point.

MVP also mentioned earlier during the media briefing that it is a very fluid environment at this time. And so once things are clear, we will provide at that time. All right. Another question, and this is in regards to PLDT stake in Maya from Nicki. What is the latest on plans to increase PLDP stake in Maya? If this happens at some point this year, will it put back your targets to achieve free cash flow as well as your 2x net debt-to-EBITDA target? Danny?

Well, if and when we invest more in Maya, you might need the help of other affiliates of the First Pacific. But it's not going to be solid coming from PLDT.

If it happens.

If it happens.

A question here in the Q&A box from Marie [Indiscernible] of Landbank. Given PLDT's current negative net working capital and debt-to-equity ratio, what specific strategies and timelines are in place to improve working capital efficiency and optimize the capital structure to achieve a healthier financial position in the short to medium term?

Well, our main focus now is asset monetization, which includes copper mining. That's one. Second is the consolidation of central offices, which will result in selling some of the idle properties. The third is continue to look for a strategic partner in ePLDT, specifically in data center. So the timing is between now and the next 3 years.

All right. This next question is from Paolo Manansala, COL. I just wanted to ask regarding the mobile business, if you are seeing an intensification of competition, or is the industry softness in mobile driven by something else? [indiscernible], would you like to take that, please?

Well, the softness I've answered, I think, a while ago. But I think the question is about the trend by which the rest of the industry is experiencing, probably the question, are we going to be in the same trend? My answer is we don't see the same trend. In fact, our data traffic continues to grow, and we see that this is being done on the back of strong 5G networks. So we're going to be relying on that for the rest of the balance of the year and in the year to come.

Thank you, Boy. The next question is in regards to our data center business. With VITRO Santa Rosa now energized, can you comment on the potential enterprise revenue uplift once BSR is fully operational? And also, do you already recognize revenues from current AI workloads?

Thank you, Jinggay. So as you know, VITRO Santa Rosa was just energized recently. It's a 50-megawatt facility that will provide 36 megawatts of IP load divided into 18 data halls of 2 megawatts each. So far, we have an anchor tenant that's already come in that's taking on 4 megawatts of space in VITRO Santa Rosa. But aside from that, we are again looking at other hyperscale customers and enterprise customers to come in and fill up the rest of the space that we have. But I think more than that, Jinggay, we're also happy to say that it is not only a hyperscale data center, but it is also an AI-ready data center. We are actually AI live. And our definition of AI-ready is not a showroom, but actual GPUs that have been deployed and that is currently running live workloads and POCs for PLDT and Smart. And we're very excited because in the next few months, we hope to launch a GPU-as-a-Service model targeting enterprises to make AI as reachable, accessible, and affordable to enterprise customers here in the Philippines. So we're looking forward to that.

This next question is regarding our OpEx. It looks like it has been declining over the past few quarters. Moving forward, is there further room to significantly reduce OpEx? Or are we nearing optimal levels?

We are nearing optimal levels at this point.

Any other questions from the floor? All right. It looks like we have exhausted the questions in the Q&A box as well as the questions that were sent to me earlier. If we don't have any further questions, I'd like to thank everybody who's joined us today. We look forward to your continued interest in PLDT and look forward to having you again in our next earnings briefing come this August. Have a great day. Thank you.

Thank you for joining us today. I'm Jinggay Nograles, I'm the Head of Investor Relations here at PLDT. And it's my pleasure to welcome you all to our full year financial and operating results briefing. So joining us today to share insights into PLDT's performance and strategic direction are Butch Jimenez, he is the PLDT Chief Operating Officer. Joining us right now is Smart Communications Chief Operating Officer, Boy Martirez. We also have here PLDT, Chief Financial Officer Mr. Danny Yu. And our Chairman and CEO, Manuel V. Pangilinan will be joining us later during the presentation. So before we begin I'd like to remind everyone that we will have a Q&A session after the presentations. [Operator Instructions] So to start I'd like to invite our Chief Financial Officer Mr. Danny Yu, to walk us through PLDT's financial performance for 2024. Danny?

Yeah. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Allow me to walk you through PLDT's 2024 financial and operating performance. Amid a dynamic and competitive landscape we delivered consistent top line growth and stable margins. Let's start with the financial highlights. Our service revenue grew 2% year-on-year to PHP 194.7 billion driven by Fiber Mobile data and Enterprise ICT. On a gross basis revenue rose by 3% to PHP 208.4 billion. EBITDA expanded by 4% to PHP 108.5 billion on the back of revenue expansion and operating efficiency. Our EBITDA margin remained strong at 52% underscoring our ability to sustain profitability even as we continue investing in network leadership and innovation. Telco Core income grew by 2% to PHP 35.1 billion reinforcing earnings stability and financial resilience. Our focus remains on expanding revenues managing costs and improving cash flow generation in 2025. PLDT service revenue growth reflects consistent demand across key business segments Mobile Data Fiber and Corporate data and ICT which now account for 88% of total revenues continued to expand offsetting legacy revenue declines. Excluding legacy services total revenues grew by 5% emphasizing our shift towards data-driven and digital services. Moreover, our growing segments more than offset the drags from legacy services with Individual Mobile Data up by 5%, Home Fiber by 6% and Corporate data and ICT services by 5%. We also expect legacy revenues drag to moderate supported by customer migration to these segments. Total revenues for our Individual segment rose by 2% to PHP 83.5 billion led by Mobile Data which rose by 5% year-on-year and a strong 7% in the fourth quarter. Mobile data now accounts for 89% of segment revenues. Key metrics have also increased. Blended ARPU moved up 9%. Average monthly mobile data usage per user grew 5% while active data user reached 41.3 million. To stay ahead in a competitive market, we are driving higher data monetization, deepening customer engagement and delivering an enhanced user experience. We are leveraging on 5G expansion to optimize revenue generation and increase ARPU, continued expansion and upgrades for our network and IT infra as well as AI-driven marketing strategies. With our extensive network and digital innovations, we are well positioned to capture further opportunities in the mobile data space. PLDT Home continued to strengthen its leadership with total Home revenues hitting PHP 60.7 billion. Fiber-only revenues grew PHP 3 billion or 6% to PHP 56 billion and now accounts for 92% of the segment revenues. We continue to set the industry benchmark with a churn rate of just 1.7%, reflecting strong customer loyalty. Meanwhile PLDT's ARPU of PHP 1,488 remains at a premium to the rest of the industry. A key driver of our success has been the higher adoption of premium plans with over 75% of new activation opting for plans above PHP 1,299. Helping this is our ability to differentiate ourselves from competition through our bundled plans, which account for about 40% of new activations. We're extending our fiber reach strategically deploying additional ports while exploring new growth areas, including prepaid fiber offerings in select locations. In 2024, we expanded our reach to 2,500 additional barangays. Our strategy remains clear: strengthen retention through improved customer experience, maintain ARPU and expand our fiber footprint. Enterprise revenues grew 3% to PHP 48.4 billion with ICT services continuing to be the fastest-growing segment, up 15% to PHP 35 billion. Key growth areas include: managed IT services, which grew 48%; cloud solutions up 30%; data center colocation, which rose by 22%. In addition, Vitro continues to lead the industry with Vitro Santa Rosa as the country's first and only AI-ready data center. Recently energized, it has already secured anchor tenants. Our focus is to expand our enterprise digital ecosystem, accelerate cloud adoption and reinforce PLDT's leadership in the ICT space. PLDT delivered PHP 108.5 billion in EBITDA, a 4% increase year-on-year, demonstrating steady revenue growth alongside effective cost management. OpEx including subsidy and provisions declined by PHP 1 billion to PHP 86.1 billion, reinforcing operational efficiencies. Our EBITDA margin remained strong at 52%. PLDT Telco Core income increased by 2% to PHP 35.1 billion. Core income expanded 5% to PHP 34.2 billion, supported by lower losses from Maya Innovations, which posted its first profitable month in December 2024. Maya Bank on the other hand has been profitable since September 2024. This demonstrates the positive trajectory of our fintech investments and their growing potential in contributing to our bottom line. Reported income surged 21% to PHP32.3 billion, up PHP5.7 billion year-on-year, owing to higher core income, derivative gains and lower asset impairment. Tower sales continued with 356 additional sites sold in 2024 and additional towers earmarked for sale in 2025, reinforcing our asset monetization strategy. We continued to optimize investments, steadily reducing CapEx intensity, while maintaining network improvement. 2024 CapEx totaled PHP78.2 billion with CapEx intensity further declining to 38%. Our CapEx guidance for 2025 is between PHP68 billion and PHP73 billion, with investments in the following key priority areas: new cell sites plus LTE and 5G upgrade, Home fiber ports, increased focus on AI and network, AI-ready data center, submarine cable investment, upgrades and modernization of network and IT to improve our quality of service. While we work on decreasing CapEx, we are committed to deliver greater outcomes through strengthened negotiation and efficient use of capital. PLDT remains in a strong financial position. Our net debt-to-EBITDA currently stands at 2.52 times and we're working to bring this level down to 2.0 times in the mid-term. In addition, we strive to deliver positive free cash flow by next year. Debt maturities are well spread out with 50% maturing beyond 2030, ensuring manageable refinancing requirements over the coming years. Our debt portfolio is well balanced with 14% dollar-denominated debt, of which 95% is hedged, thereby reducing ForEx risk. Interest costs remained competitive with a healthy mix of 41% fixed rate and 59% floating rate. Average debt maturity stands at 6.6 years. We're also pleased to report that we have retained our investment-grade ratings from S&P and Moody's, reinforcing our prudent debt management strategy. For 2024, total dividends amount to 97 per share reflecting a 60% regular dividend payout aligned with our policy. A final dividend of 47 per share was declared today. PLDT continues to focus on deleveraging to generate positive free cash flows. As of yesterday, PLDT's 12-month trailing dividend yield stands at 7%, positioning us as one of the most attractive dividend plays in the market. Now for Maya. I'll be presenting its 2024 operating highlights, showcasing its strong growth and market leadership in fintech. Maya remains the number one digital bank in the Philippines by deposit balance and customer base. It also continues to lead in merchant acquiring, holding the largest market share in card acquiring and QR Ph transactions. As of December 2024, Maya Bank's customer base grew significantly, up 71% year-on-year to 5.4 million bank customers, while lending expanded to 1.6 million borrowers, doubling from the previous year. Deposits rose 59% to PHP 39 billion and cumulative loans disbursed reached PHP 92 billion with 2024 PHP 68 billion issued in 2024 alone. Most notably, Maya achieved positive net income in December 2024, marking a major milestone for its financial sustainability. These accomplishments demonstrates Maya's strength in providing seamless digital banking and financial services, further solidifying its dominance. Next page, please. Next page, please. Maya's financial performance is backed by significant growth in deposit and increasing loan-to-deposit ratio. Over the past two years, deposit more than doubled from PHP 14.7 billion in 2022 to PHP 39.3 billion in 2024, while the loan-to-deposit ratio increased from 5% to 42%, highlighting efficient capital deployment and growing credit demand. On the lending front, Maya has experienced exponential growth. Cumulative loan disbursement now totaled PHP 92 billion, while outstanding loans have reached PHP 16.7 billion as of December 2024. Maya's disciplined risk management continues to set it apart with an NPL ratio of only 3.5%, significantly below the 7.1% industry average, demonstrating strong underwriting and a high-quality loan portfolio. Beyond deposits and lending, Maya has continued to expand its product offering, launching new solutions for both consumers and businesses. In the consumer segment, the company successfully introduced its first credit card product, the Maya Landers Cashback credit card, issuing over 100,000 cards within just 5 months of its commercial launch. This expansion enhances Maya's engagement with growing customer base and strengthens its position in offering credit to the customers. For enterprises, Maya has introduced bill payments for merchants in Maya Business deposits. It also rolled out custom loan terms of Maya Business Advance, offering flexibility to business needs. These initiatives reinforce Maya's commitment to innovation and financial inclusion, providing seamless digital solutions that empower businesses and individuals alike. With its continued focus on growth, Maya is well positioned to expand its fintech ecosystem and drive further financial empowerment in the Philippines. PLDT has made significant progress in the area of sustainability, which we define as ensuring long-term profitability by doing business responsibly. Our S&P Corporate Sustainability Assessment score rose 14 points to 72, the highest among the Philippine corporates. As a result, PLDT was the only Philippine company included in the 2025 S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook, joining 780 companies out of 7,700 assessed worldwide. PLDT was also recognized as an industry mover in global telecommunications for its strong sustainability performance. Child protection remains a key sustainability focus. Under the Global Child Forum benchmark, PLDT ranked second globally among over 1,000 companies and was the highest ranked telco reinforcing our commitment to protecting vulnerable users of our connectivity. We entered 2025 with each business prime for expansion. We're harnessing innovations and digital transformation to unlock new opportunities and deliver greater value. We continued to invest strategically strengthening our network infrastructure expanding 5G and leveraging AI-driven marketing and enterprise solutions to sustain growth. Our business remains resilient with steady revenue growth and stable EBITDA. We remain focused on cost efficiency, while ensuring CapEx is directed towards high-impact areas. With that let's now discuss the key growth initiatives for each business unit.

Thank you, Danny. All right. So, now to provide further context on our operational performance and key business unit developments, we will hear from our business unit heads. So, first Mr. Boy Martirez, Chief Operating Officer of Smart will discuss developments in our Wireless business. Then after him Jeremiah De La Cruz, SVP and Head of our Home business will provide an update on his segment. And lastly, Jojo Gendrano, SVP and Head of Enterprise will walk us through the latest in our Enterprise segment including our updates on our data center and ICT initiatives. Boy over to you.

Thank you, Jinggay. A pleasant good afternoon to all our partners from the investment analyst community. Today I'm going to be talking about unlocking Wireless growth, particularly on our 5G and I will also be touching on AI and a smarter way to monetize data. I will speak on two major points. The first one is about scaling our 5G adoption and therefore monetization. The second part will be about AI. On the first part, I will be touching on our rollout, particularly what we call 5G cities and how together with combining it with affordable phones, 5G phones will result in expanding mass adoption. The second point that I will take up along this first set of issue is about monetization, okay? And then I will talk about the 5G migration and of course, the 5G devices. So, on the first part on 5G cities, our philosophy is to basically not roll out on the basis of just pure reach because that will require a lot of CapEx. A more sensible thinking around this is to ensure that we roll out on the basis of a home-work-play seamlessness. Now, maybe that may not give you enough reach, but it will give you a more meaningful way of providing a 5G experience for all the people who would adopt 5G. So, alongside that is a combination of putting 5G devices. That kind of rollout plus the 5G devices is I think in our view the best way that will provide you the adoption that we want -- that we are desiring. The second point to talk about 5G and monetization, is also the issue of experience-based monetization. Now, what do we, mean by that? Experience-based monetization is something that can only be delivered, by innovation. Innovation, because it is actually the touch points by which we're able to tell the customers, here is our offer. Here is our offer at the right place, at the right time for you, so that way we engage them better. When we engage customers better with innovations like this, we are able to achieve the monetization that we so desire. The third point is about migration path from 2G to 3G, 3G to 4G and 4G to 5G and that hopefully, will create the ARPU lift. We have shown to ourselves -- we have demonstrated to ourselves, that when we did this in a way that we established it in BGC, the twin introduction of or back-to-back introduction of 5G in BGC, which we were able to achieve a 20% ARPU lift, across at least 500,000 subscribers that were in that particular incident. So, this for us, is a very good demonstration of the model itself. And using AI, we would like to be able to scale this up moving forward. 5G devices in the Smart network. The 5G devices in the Smart network in the year, under review actually grew by 67% versus a year ago, and that is significant for us. Our aspiration is to grow it even better, moving forward. So all of these together, points out that by -- that we would be able to scale 5G adoption and monetization in the way that we would like it to be. Let me go to the second part of my discussion, which is being an AI-native organization. AI to us is very, very important. AI to us is the leading-edge technology that will enable us to achieve what we want -- to achieve our goals. But we have never lost track of the fact, that the more important thing, and the more overriding thing for us is customer centricity. We have to deliver what the customers aspire for and the technology is the one that will enable us to get it. A lot of telcos have fallen to the trap, of falling in love with technology. We have not. We have seen technology, only as an enabler. We have never lost track of the fact that our more overriding concern is to give Filipinos, the global -- the best global service there is. And that still is our true north. So to talk about it, we have embedded AI in our network. You will see that AI we have a SON -- we have SON in our AI a self-optimizing network. The stirrings of the SON is basically the fact that we are able to get load sharing, in our network. We have also activated data analytics, which is now has morphed into AI-driven analytics. So, with that, we're able to have a better and a more meaningful approach in obtaining, an increase in revenue and a decrease in cost. Advertising. Our advertising has become more meaningful in the sense that instead of advertising in a broad way, like what it was before, the old school way, now we're able to geo-target to be able to deliver a particular message across a specific target as a segment, who really needs a specific offer. And that is a use case for us, it's an AI use case. We have also put in analytics into every aspect of our organization. So, all of these network hyper-personalization and all of these initiatives have actually helped us, already in 2025 and we will do more -- in 2024, and we will do more in 2025. I'm going to be open for questions.

Thank you Boy. And then we have Jeremiah next for our Home segment.

Good afternoon everyone. I'd just like to touch on two things for Home and it's really around innovation. At the end of November 2024, PLDT leveraged our advantage as an integrated telco by launching a service for the Home that uses both our fiber as well as our mobile network. A first in the world it provides connectivity to the home utilizing PLDT's extensive XGS PON network as well as our mobile network. What it does is, it ensures that our customers are able to actually have connectivity in the home when they want it how they want it and making sure that that reliability actually remains for them. This is the very first service, it's the very first time this service has been made as an integrated service. So seamlessly bringing those two technologies together so that the customers don't have to worry about which technology or which service that they're actually using. In addition, PLDT has actually taken innovations not just externally but actually internally as well. I just wanted to build on what Boy was saying which is actually around AI and embracing AI. We've actually embraced AI within PLDT Home in two main areas at this point in time. It really is the tip of the iceberg. So we've embraced AI in its application with regards to collections. So historically collections is something that is done by people actually picking the phone up calling and it can be actually quite a tedious exercise. And sometimes you have a mixed bag always with regards to the results. Very exciting that we've been able to deploy AI to help us in this particular area and we have seen very, very promising results. Not only has it actually yielded the same performance if not better, but it has actually enabled us to reach out to the different languages and different dialects within the Philippines. So using AI to be able to reach out to the -- and using native language as well to reach out to them in a language that better resonates and has actually helped us yield better results. We've extended that capability to also our cross-sell and upsell, right? So we've actually started to use AI as well to be able to reach out to our customers to talk to them about other services other offerings that we have available in a timely fashion. So in the past we've actually been limited by the number of manpower, the number of hours that we have available in the day. But moving forward with AI, we now have the flexibility and the elasticity to be able to reach out to them at the time that best suits them and is most -- I guess most appropriate for them as well. So for PLDT Home our innovation is really two-pronged. It's new innovations with regards to new technology and the things that we launched with Always On making new services available for our customers, but also innovation internally where we're taking and embracing new technology like AI and making our operations much, much more efficient and more relevant for our customers.

Thank you Jeremiah. And lastly we have Mr. Jojo Gendrano, who will be talking about our Enterprise business as well as our data center initiative.

Thank you very much and good afternoon. Our Enterprise business remains committed to help our customers through innovation. So we're excited to provide value through the capabilities of our network and of course, our people. For large-scale operations in remote areas needing resilient infrastructure 5G mobile private networks are being designed for select customers particularly in mining and ports. In dense locations, 5G slicing, through 5G standalone, enables a differentiated network for use cases like public safety and security, smart meters and smart cities. We have a robust -- a very robust partnership ecosystem with known brands in 5G, that we continue to collaborate with together with our customers to deliver solutions that matter. On the next front, we're also excited to announce that we are the first Philippine operator to achieve GSMA Open Gateway certification, for the number verification API. So what does this mean? In using APIs to expose the capabilities of our network, mobile applications are able to silently and securely authenticate a user or a transaction without the need for a one-time PIN. We are already working with a banking ecosystem including aggregators, in this area which is called, network APIs. It's likely one of the major topics in Mobile World Congress next week, in Barcelona. And we are excited about the potential for the new revenues and to add value to our customers. And it's just the start. So number verification is one of the multiple APIs, that the industry through the GSMA have developed and we will be launching more in the next few months. Next slide please. Also, VITRO Santa Rosa is now live, as evident by the picture on the slide. And our backlog right, located in an optimal facility for hyperscale data centers it was energized last year with an anchor tenant and other businesses already using our state-of-the-art facility. Next slide please. We are committed to continue to lead in the data center space leading in both capacity and flexibility with our unmatched 11 carrier-neutral and resilient by design locations all over the country, trusted by both hyperscalers and enterprises. We are currently the only AI-ready hyperscale DC in the Philippines. VITRO Santa Rosa is able to support the immense compute demands, needed through an AI with IT cabinets, planned to support up to 100 kilowatts per rack. This is necessary for us to provide GPU-as-a-Service to meet the increasing demands for AI. And as we expand our footprint, sustainability remains a priority. We are committed to running our data centers on at least 40% renewable energy by 2030. We are ISO 14001 and 15001 certified, reinforcing our dedication to environmental responsibility. Beyond sustainability, our data centers have been critical in national infrastructure supporting mission-critical applications such as the Comelec's Election Infrastructure and The GSIS' disaster recovery systems, further strengthening trust in PLDT's and ePLDT's capabilities. With AI cloud and hyperscaler demand driving a major shift in data center requirements, PLDT and ePLDT are strategically positioned as the leading AI-ready, hyperscale-capable data center provider in the Philippines. Our robust infrastructure, connectivity leadership and commitment to sustainability, makes us the ideal partner for global and local enterprises seeking secure high-performance data solutions. We remain committed to scaling ahead of demand to support the country's digital transformation and establish the Philippines, as a key data center hub in Asia Pacific. Thank you.

Thank you, gentlemen. And I'd like to acknowledge the presence of our President and CEO, Manuel V. Pangilinan, as well as our Corporate Secretary, Attorney Marilyn Aquino. All right. So with that, I'd like to move on to Q&A. I'd like to emphasize that while 2024 was a year of resilience and execution, we remain focused on our long-term growth priorities. Our network leadership and digital transformation efforts will continue to be at the core of our strategy as we drive sustainable value creation for our stakeholders.

Now we'd like to open the floor to your questions. And for those joining us on site please go ahead and raise your hand. We'll provide a microphone for you. Please state your name, as well as your company affiliation and you can go ahead and ask your questions. For those joining us online, please submit your questions via the Q&A panel. You may also raise your hand, and we can unmute you as well. Thank you. While we wait for some questions, I did get a few questions emailed to me prior. So this first question is regarding the Konektadong Pinoy Act. Someone posed a question that some industry stakeholders have opposed the bill due to national security and digital fraud concerns. What is PLDT's stand on this bill? And how do you see this impacting competition especially from foreign players?

Konektadong Pinoy mainly focuses on open access. Even without the bill, we're already providing open access to some data transmission providers, including Converge and the like. So our only request is that the bill basically treat everyone without discrimination and equally. And so we are supportive of the government's effort to provide open access. And our hope is the law when it is actually passed will be crafted such that there are reasonable restrictions and protection to those who own the assets. And what else? We also would like to be treated equally with the data transmission providers, because currently our business -- around 78% of our business is already data transmission. So in that sense any protection being provided to the data transmission providers should also be provided to us. And I think that's basically our position. And we are going to work with the government on this law and we are going to also work with the government and the regulators in respect of the promulgation of rules and regulations in the event the law is passed.

Thank you Attorney Marilyn. Any questions from the floor? All right. I'll move on to some of the other questions that were sent to me beforehand. This is for the Home segment. PLDT Home has maintained an industry leading churn rate of 1.7% and stable ARPU. What are some key initiatives driving customer retention? How sustainable are these trends? And can you talk in more detail about your push for prepaid fiber?

Thank you for the question. I think it's very obvious that in the market, there is actually quite a lot of price competition happening. And you can actually see that with the advent of lower price points, as well as prepaid offerings. PLDT Home is committed to making sure that we have relevant offers for the different segments in the marketplace. So we've been very, very focused in making sure that we have a competitive offer at all of the different segments, whether that's the entry level, mid, as well as the high end. So some of the initiatives that we've been embarking on at PLDT Home is making sure that we've actually given the best proposition and package available for all of our customers. That includes actually increasing the speeds on certain price plans making sure that customers are aware of new offerings. And all of these initiatives combined have actually helped us sustain our ARPU. If you look at the level of competition and the level of commoditization over the last few years, if you go back to 2020 for PHP 1599, you would only get 50 megabits per second. Today, you're looking at 300 megabits per second, right? So there actually is quite a lot of commoditization happening in the marketplace. And PLDT being the incumbent has had actually the most amount of price pressure applied to us. We've been able to sustain our ARPU simply because we've continued to provide value for our customers. So making sure that they actually have the right plan, the relevant plan and continuing to enrich the offerings that we have available for them and sustaining that price point. Now, that includes not just increasing speeds, but making sure that we also provide additional services for them. In fact today, a vast majority of our customers now availing of our PLDT Home subscription does so with two other additional inclusions beyond just data connectivity. They do that with some -- the benefits of having signal instantly within their package, right? And additionally, we also provide some prepaid mobile offering. So many of our customers actually now enjoy included in their PLDT Home subscription, five Smart prepaid SIMs that they're actually available and enjoy the benefits of a calling circle amongst themselves. So that's something that's been very, very important and key to us in being able to deliver and maintain our ARPU at the level that it has. Now, what's really important as well for all our customers to ensure that we maintain our churn levels is service. I think we all hear about it constantly service, service, service. It is absolutely critical. And we've been spending more and more time and more and more efforts in actually improving that service. I'm not going to stand here in front of you and say, we've actually cracked it and we're there yet. It's a journey. And in fact that journey we've made significant strides to improving our service and we've seen the speed of restoration dramatically decrease -- sorry increase, but the amount of time that you've been waiting has actually decreased, right? And we're seeing that translate to not just faster times for our customers, but we're seeing that with our churn rate. If you look at our churn rate, it is industry-leading. We're at 1.7%. Our nearest competitor stands at 2.1%. Ultimately, our customers are going to vote with their feet. If they're unhappy with your service, they're going to decide to find another alternative service. And we're seeing that, we see that. And that's why we're absolutely committed in driving to actually improving our service even further. In fact our 2025 outlook, we will be spending more money in our network and actually maintenance of our service -- of our network. So not just rolling out. In fact from a network side of things, we're not just focused on rolling out and creating new areas, but we're also focusing on making sure that we upgrade and maintain our existing network as well. Now, with regards to the question on prepaid, prepaid is part of our overall offering, but our focus has been squarely on postpaid at this point in time. We have had prepaid that is available. We don't disclose the numbers, but I wanted to be transparent with you. We do have prepaid customers on our network and we do make it available. We're in a different situation to our competitors, simply because we – if you look at the number of ports that we have available and the number of customers we have on our network, it is significantly higher. So we have to also be careful that when we offer prepaid that it's not necessarily impacting negatively our postpaid customers and actually doesn't have a massive dilution with regards to our ARPU, as well as our profitability. You will see us doing more and more in the prepaid space absolutely. But we'll be very, very selective about it and we'll be very, very purposeful in how we do it, so that we don't see a dilution in our – not just ARPU actually, not necessarily ARPU in the prepaid space but we don't see a dilution with regards to profitability.

Thank you, Jeremiah. Let me just go through the Q&A box. Here I think we have some questions in. All right. From Zhiwei Foo of Macquarie, can we discuss your Mobile business? How did PLDT drive the higher ARPU quarter-on-quarter for 4Q, whilst your peers saw a decline? How do you see consumers being able to take higher ARPUs once price competition eases?

That's a question for Mobile. Let me tackle that. Fourth quarter saw us in a situation where we were able to build data and then it's a question of monetizing it. And we monetized it on the basis of the fact that we have upskilled our sales and marketing infrastructure. We've rolled out our 5G network in the work-home-play regime that we talked about a while ago and plus the fact that we have 5G phones with us. So all of that confluence to having been able to achieve what we were able to achieve in the fourth quarter. I cannot speak for my competitors but probably it looks like we did better. So I hope I answered.

Yes. Thank you, Boy. All right. We have another question here on the Q&A box from Vovan Lim [ph]. May I get your thoughts on why revenues of Fiber broadband may be falling behind industry growth? How is the expected unit economics for Always On package given that it's just PHP 299 a month?

I'll start off with the question on the speed of the market. So we saw some challenges at the beginning of 2024 and we actually had to make some adjustments with regards to some of the go-to-market activities we had as well as accelerate the rollout. As I think you would all remember 2023 was a challenging year with regards to network rollout for us. So we wanted to accelerate that network rollout. So with the combination of some of the adjustments we've made as well as the rollout, we've actually seen the second half of 2024 perform much better. If you look at our net adds, we saw a 190% increase in the number of net adds that we had in the second half, which is actually helping to contribute an improvement in our overall Fiber growth as well as our Home performance. If you deep dive into the performance of Home in 2024, you'll see that it was actually quite flat in the first half but we saw an increase coming through in the third as well as the fourth quarter. In fact, the trajectory is continuing through and we'll expect that to continue on, especially as we have seen the net adds increase quite substantially in the third as well as the fourth quarter. Now we're going to continue to support that. We have a rollout that's planned as well and focusing on delivering in the first half. So we'll continue to support that with additional rollout. And we'll start to see that the overall growth of Home, as well as our Fiber business actually not just continue to lift but actually be much, much higher than where it is today. Now, with the second question was, I think the economics with regards to our Always On solution. I can't go into the detail of the product economics but what I can share with you is, the innovation actually uses two of our networks right? So our XGS-PON, our fixed and fiber network, and the second one is, our mobile network. The customers are looking for the fastest and the best connection possible. And that really is for the Home and most use cases is really around using the fiber network, right? So most of the time, when a customer is using an Always On service, they will be using our fiber network. In the event that there's service interruption and that can happen for a number of reasons, whether that's the weather, whether it's nature, whether it's an accident or there's some digging that actually happens down your street. There may be instances where that connectivity has been interrupted. And that's where we're able to leverage the fact that PLDT is an integrated network and we also have one of the widest and fastest mobile networks in the country, we're able to leverage our mobile network into continuing to deliver our service into the home. So they don't have to worry about hang on, I've had a service interruption. I now need to change SSIDs. I now need to change networks. I need to think of an alternative method. No, the Always On service makes sure that we actually continue to deliver our service into your home no matter what, right? So in terms of unit economics, really, I can't go into the detail of the unit economics. But what I can share is it does leverage the strength of PLDT and Smart. Because we are an integrated network, we're able to leverage those two networks that we've invested quite significantly in over the years.

Thank you. I have a question here about our legacy drags. How much longer will legacy businesses be a drag to top line growth? Any initiatives being done to migrate or sunset these businesses and migrate customers? I think that's a question for both our Wireless segment -- or actually all our segments actually. So I don't know who wants to take it first.

Well on the network side, when it comes to our legacy services right, especially on the fixed line, we are accelerating the migration of all our copper subscribers to fiber. In fact you're going to see a very strong reduction in our copper subscribers even just in the month of January alone. We have a mandate to significantly do the -- finish the migration by midyear or third quarter of next year. And so that's a target that we're going to be going after. And so we will see that drag of legacy services continue to decline and hopefully, by next year will be completely wiped out. But acceleration of migration will happen this year and will almost be completed.

On that our target is, to sunset basically the lower-generation technologies and do it within this year. Helping that would be basically the availability of handsets, particularly on 4G and 5G, by which we would be able to migrate our existing subscribers on these lower-generation technologies to higher-generation where hopefully decisively, there will be better ARPU and better revenue. And I think that helps into the situation of the industry as well.

Thank you, Boy and thank you, Butch. I have another question here, let me just -- from Brian Lim of Guild Securities. Can you clarify the 11% increase in Fixed Line from 2023 to 2024? Is this a result of the 40% bundled packages I guess for the fiber acquisitions? If not can you expand on this a bit? So I guess why is voice growing? Yeah. So I think it's the growth in Fixed Line voice. So it seems to be growing from 2023 to 2024. Is it because it's part of the bundled Fiber product yes.

Component of voice that may be growing. And I think you've already hit it the nail on the head there. It's really a cost allocation that we have as we sell more and more bundled products and those bundled products as we sort of shared was about 40% of our customers are availing of a bundled product. Whether that's bundled with Cignal as well as with voice and also mobile there is a small component of that that's actually allocated. So we'll be looking that's really that's the driver. But what's most important for us is then looking at the difference between copper as well as our Fiber business because voice in itself is not necessarily a bad thing right? Voice in itself is not necessarily a bad thing providing it's actually conducted or served over our fiber network. Moving forward, it will be our fiber network that will remain with us for the next 10, 20, 30 years, right? It's really what will be sunset is copper right? So that's why we're really, really focused in on moving our customers as Butch had mentioned migrating as many of our customers over from our copper network to our fiber network. We are seeing -- naturally we see and we talk about the decline of voice because we are seeing customers move away from voice-centric services to data-centric services and that's predominantly broadband especially with voice over IP right? We will see that. But this -- within fiber itself that movement between the two is really just a cost allocation amongst the different product lines.

Thank you Jeremiah. Okay. I have a raised hand here from John Te of UBS. You are unmated, go ahead.

Hi. Thank for the opportunity. Three questions for me. First is any preliminary guidance for 2025 from the Chairman? Second is on Mobile. While it was very strong we did see some subscriber losses on prepaid in the fourth quarter. Any specific reason or any color on that? Third on broadband again a strong result but the momentum the gross the net add momentum slowed from about 100000 in the third quarter to about 40000 in the fourth quarter. Any seasonality or any particular reason why? That's it for me.

Yes we can start with the guidance.

Well, at this point, I don't think we are comfortable about giving any specific guidance for core income for 2025. We do know that -- we do have targets. We do have budget numbers and they're showing increases in revenues and in profitability for 2025. But we'd like to be better prepared I think or better certain more certain about how our numbers will spin out especially core profitability for the full year 2025. We've seen some softness in the market not only telcos but also in the power business and so forth. And we're not quite sure why that is so at this stage. So I think it's best to be prudent and perhaps after the first quarter when we have a better reading of the economic situation in this country then we can provide some guidance as to the full year view of core income for PLDT Inc.

Thank you Mr. Chairman. I think the next question was regarding our Mobile subscriber base and the decline in the fourth quarter. So we saw some subscriber losses on prepaid in the fourth quarter. Any specific reason why that occurred?

Well to that question that was just a result of the cleanup on subscribers. So -- and that's a year end cleanup as our CFO was saying.

All right. And I think third is the broadband. Jeremiah?

Thanks. A very similar to what Boy mentioned we do -- seasonally do some cleanups with regards to subscriber numbers. And so you'll see that show a seasonally low figure. We are seeing though I can share with you that our gross additions over that period as well as our migrations actually remained steady. There are -- typically we do see some challenges in the fourth quarter simply because of the Christmas period. As you know people's accessibility is not the same. So you see a lot of December actually take a hit. However, I can share with you that we did see our gross additions continue to grow in the fourth quarter. And in fact that has continued through to 2025. So we're anticipating a much, much stronger 2025 carrying that momentum in from the second half of last year and building on the third quarter of last year as well.

Thank you. Thank you, Jin. All right. We have time for a few more questions here. This is on GPU-as-a-Service. Can you speak more about that product offering? What has demand been like now that it has been launched? Any enterprises open to this type of service?

Sure. So thank you very much for that question. Our GPU-as-a-Service offering in ePLDT is still in its fairly early stages. So we have a modest farm in VITRO Sta Rosa that actually has active workloads and active use cases on those GPUs. Too early to say on the specific pricing model once we get to full launch but this is an area that we intend to be very aggressive in and the pricing that we have to come up will have to be competitive. We've been in discussions with a lot of enterprises. We see a lot of demand coming and it's important that we continue to work together with them not just on providing the GPUs but also sitting down with them and really working together with them on the use cases. On top of that we also see a lot of activity from other GPU-as-a-Service providers that want to come into the Philippines. They are welcome and we are welcome to host them in VITRO Sta Rosa. Thank you.

All right. We have about a minute left in the briefing. Any questions from the floor? Derrick?

Hi. This is Derrick from CLSA. I have several questions. First on the FinTech side. I saw a Bloomberg headline earlier. PLDT would like to purchase the KKR stake on Maya. How do you intend to finance this buyout if ever? And is it strictly going to be through PLDT? That's number one. Number two on the asset sales is there a possibility for PLDT to monetize non-tower or non-data center assets? I'm talking about the legacy assets you have in line with the question earlier about the legacy migration. That's all.

Well, I think there's no certainty yet that KKR as a seller, I think we do know -- who asked this question. We do know that they have engaged two American banks to scan the market and get an idea of what the value of Maya might be as a whole. And in the next few weeks or so, they have undertaken to give us an indication of what that valuation is going to be and probably themselves assess whether the value they get from the market is within their price range and whether we ourselves would be prepared to buy certain shares from them. We did say that we are not a seller unless they come back with a humongous price in which case we may consider selling together with them. But if the values are within our own range then we might consider buying. But together with First Pacific, PLDT owns slightly less than 40%. So we need to buy only about 11% for us to achieve control of the company of the Maya group. So, of course, if they come back with US$10 billion you'd probably sell and get US$4 billion and get rid of all of our debts. That's music to our ears, Danny right? And that we can try to explain about our gearing and all that sort of thing. Yeah, so we don't know. So let's wait for one month or two and see what those values are. That would be interesting. We are not altogether optimistic that they get the values that they want I think given the market and the situation elsewhere in the world. Yeah.

Let me take the second question regarding monetization of our legacy assets. We are really focused on being able to take a look at the legacy assets that we have and starting to monetize them. And we are going to initiate the first and foremost, the copper monetization. In fact in the next couple of weeks, we're already going to do operational POCs. It's not that easy to just rip out the copper and sell it right? There may be copper facilities that are linked to subscribers. So it's a very operational endeavor. And we've engaged Deutsche Telekom and Deon, who has done copper monetization and copper mining through many telcos all over the world to take us through all the processes and make sure that when we do start ripping out these copper facilities of ours, we're not affecting other subscribers, right? So we are doing POCs in four of our exchanges just to study how difficult it is. If you look at the copper facilities, the aerial copper facilities, you'll already see how many telcos are intertwined with each other. So it's not as easy to just rip that out and sell it. Secondly, one of the things that we're studying is the value chain. You can rip out the copper and sell it as scrap, and there's a price to that. But if you start processing it, the price actually goes higher. There's also the wisdom of warehousing because, as you know, commodity prices of copper go up and down. We are projecting copper prices for 2025. That seems like it's going to start escalating going up. So you may want to warehouse and sell when the price is high and not just sell whenever. So all these things we are studying, and we are going to be initiating this for PLDT. It's really being able to monetize trash, right? It's something that we don't use and something that we can sell and is very valuable. But the beauty of the legacy monetization is that while copper is a big one, there are other legacy infrastructure that we have that we can sell. When we migrate 3G, you know those 3G cell sites, those things can be sold to maybe third world countries that still want to use 3G. So we are looking at this whole ecosystem of being able to monetize these legacy assets. And definitely, you're going to see that movement in 2025.

Thank you, Butch. Mark, go ahead.

Just on the legacy assets. You mentioned a while ago, you're trying to monetize, right? But if it's trash that you mentioned, how much money can you earn? I mean, we're moving past that already, right? So well, maybe give me a ballpark number, how much is copper

No. You can't divulge at this point. Right at this point we can't. But it is..

It is a lot, copper wires that we have that we have pulled out. And are we okay to. Okay. Sorry. I mean but it's in the billions of pesos. So you were asked by me, but we were verboten to indicate, but we pulled quite a bit of copper wires. And if Meralco wants to buy it, we'll give it to them, right? I don't think so far, power doesn't run on fiber. So that's one. Of course, you asked us how are we going to finance the acquisition, say, 10% or 11% of Maya.. Well that's one. We could sell our copper that's more than enough I think to buy the 10%. Of course depends what the values are. Number two the Board just reclassified certain of our properties as properties for sale that are not currently in use or excess to our requirements. Number three we could sell down our data center correct? So I think we'll have more than adequate ammunition to buy at least 10% of Maya. I don't want to trade the value of the data centers for Maya. Maybe that will work maybe that will not work from a value standpoint. But certainly the copper wires should go and the excess properties will also go in the course of this year.

We're a little bit over time but we still have quite a number of questions in the queue. Maybe I'll take a few more. This one is on Maya from Zhiwei. We have Aayush on the line as well who's the CIRO [ph] of Maya. So maybe you can take this question Aayush. It says congratulations on Maya turning around to profitability. Can we discuss how such a strong turnaround was achieved in the fourth quarter? What business helped to drive this turnaround? And how should we expect that segment and loan growth to perform in 2025?

Thanks Jinggay, and thanks for that question. Good afternoon everyone. I think we have seen a broad strength in the business across the board. Both the payments and the banking business have done well. Our strategy of offering a consolidated financial services through our platforms both for businesses and for consumers, have worked very well. We have seen higher cross-sell rates of different products on our platforms. And it's really just sort of launching products that the market needs, and being able to scale those products in a profitable manner that has sort of worked in our favor. And we have done that, while maintaining a laser focus on our cost and our ability to service our customers, at a fairly fixed sort of cost to serve, which has been a strength of ours given that we own a lot of our tech infrastructure, our front end, our back end. And so with scale, the profitability has been there.

Thank you, Aayush. All right. I think that's all the time we have for today. For those whose questions we were not able to answer, I'll try to get back to you as soon as possible. I've collated the questions here. But that concludes today's briefing. So, thank you again for your time and for your support and we look forward to our next update, with you guys on May. Have a good afternoon everyone. Thank you.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today to discuss the Company's Financial and Operating Results for the First Half of 2024. A copy of today's presentation is posted on our website. For those who have not been able to do so, you may download the presentation from www.pldt.com under the Investor Relations section. Kindly note that this briefing is being recorded. A broadcast of the event will be available on our website after the call. The QR code for the presentation is on the screen and in the confirmation notices e-mailed to you. For today's presentation, we have with us our Chairman and CEO, Mr. Manny Pangilinan; Mr. Danny Yu, our Chief Financial Officer and Chief Risk Management Officer; Atty. Marilyn Aquino, our Corporate Secretary and Chief Legal Counsel; as well as the business unit heads led by Mr. Jeremiah De La Cruz of Home; Mr. Jojo Gendrano of Enterprise; Ms. Kristine Go for the individual business; and our Head of Network, Mr. Butch Jimenez. At this point, let me turn the floor over to Mr. Danny Yu to start the presentation.

Good afternoon, everyone. Please allow me to present PLDT's financial and operating highlights for the first semester of 2024. Consolidated service revenues for the first half reached another milestone at ₱96.9 billion or 3% higher than last year. On gross basis, service revenues were higher by 4%, compared to the same period last year. Operating expenses marginally grew by 1% to ₱43 billion. Consolidated EBITDA rose by 3% to ₱53.9 billion, a semestral high, with EBITDA margin at 52%. Telco core income, excluding the impact of asset sales in Maya, expanded by 3% to ₱18 billion. On segment basis, our Individual business registered ₱1.7 billion or 4% growth in revenues to ₱41.9 billion. The Enterprise segment recorded a 4% revenue upswing to ₱24 billion. While our Home revenues were marginally lower by ₱177 million or 1% at ₱30 billion, fiber-only revenues were higher by 7% or ₱1.8 billion, compared to the same period last year. Now on these slides, while it may appear that the headline service revenues rose by 3%, revenues have actually grown by 7%, excluding the drag from legacy businesses, thus growing segment now contribute 87% of our total business from last year's 83%. For the Individual business, mobile data, accounting for 89% of total segment revenues, grew 8% year-on-year. This doubles the segment growth of 4%, which reflected the drag from the legacy SMS and voice. While the overall Home segment showed a marginal decline of 1% year-on-year, fiber-only revenues, which now represent 92% of the segment, rose 7%. Unlike other telcos, PLDT voice continues to contribute, albeit at a declining trend. Corporate data and ICT, which were 72% of the total enterprise revenues, were higher by 7%, compared to the overall segment revenue increase of 4%. Now for more details of the respective business segments. Service revenues for the Individual business grew by 4% in the first semester of the year, mirroring the same improvements in postpaid and prepaid. Mobile data underpinned the growth. Blended ARPU was higher by 14%, mainly due to the 11% rise in average usage and data traffic. The second quarter saw a 4% rise in service revenues, compared with the same period last year. However, it saw a dip versus the previous quarter, due to limited customer mobility from school holidays, and the rise in heat index. Notable for this segment is the increase in active mobile data users to 40.5 million from 39.4 million at the end of March. Usage per sub grew to 11.6 GB, up 11% year-on-year. Among the initiatives to accelerate the mobile growth momentum are best value offers and geo-targeted campaigns. We are complementing site rollouts and capacity expansions with programs to transform our customer care into a tech-driven center of excellence to enhance customer service. Next, please. 92% of our Home revenues are from fiber business, which registered a 7% year-on-year growth. As we mentioned last quarter, we started to accelerate port rollouts this year. In tandem with this, we focused on improving the pace of our fiber installations. This should translate to higher gross adds moving forward. We're happy to report that from May to June, we saw a 20% increase in fiber installs. Home fiber ARPU remained at around ₱1,500 level with lower-priced plans offered selectively in areas where we have spare capacity. PLDT Home has fiber plans that cater to a wide range of economic segments, enabled by its integrated fixed and wireless network. This includes Gigabit Fiber at the higher end; Fiber Unli-All Bundles for the mainstream, and prepaid fiber and fixed wireless for the low end. Our increased focus on quality of service, and quality acquisitions are driving significant improvements in churn. From 1.82% in the first quarter, fiber churn declined to 1.52% in the second quarter. PLDT continues to enjoy strong brand equity and superior network quality, making it a formidable competitor in the market. Next, please. Our Enterprise business operated against a backdrop where the overall industry experienced a slowdown, as customers were more deliberate with their IT and data transformation decisions, as they considered the impact of global trends, the fear of cloud and cyber threats. Nonetheless, the Enterprise segment recorded a 4% revenue rise with corporate data and ICT being the underlying growth drivers, having grown 7% in the first semester. Among the revenue streams that registered improvements were core connectivity, and higher ICT revenues from managed IT services, cybersecurity solutions and cloud services. Included in our Enterprise offers are differentiated SD-WAN, Managed Networking, IoT platform and a portfolio of services. We also continued to expand our capabilities in AI and cloud. The Sta. Rosa data center was energized in July with 20 megawatts of IT load capacity expected to be available by the end of 2024. This makes VITRO Sta. Rosa well positioned to capture growth from hyperscale and AI data center demand ahead of other operators. Despite cost pressures from inflation and high cost to operate, total OpEx was marginally higher by only 1% or ₱600 million in the first semester, reflecting our continuing pursuit of operational efficiencies and cost rationalization. Consolidated EBITDA for the six months of 2024 grew 3% to ₱53.9 billion, a semestral high, driven by higher revenues. EBITDA margin stood at 52%. Telco core income for the first half of '24 rose by 3% to ₱18 billion, reflecting the impact of higher EBITDA, partly offset by higher depreciation and financing costs. On reported basis, PLDT income was stable at ₱18.4 billion. Note that our share in losses from Maya continues to decline, as Maya remains on track to achieve bottom line breakeven in the last quarter of this year. The Board of Directors approved a payout of an interim dividend of ₱50 per share, representing 60% of our telco core income for the first half of 2024, consistent with our dividend policy. Record date is set for August 27 while payment is scheduled for September 11. PLDT's balance sheet remains healthy with net debt-to-EBITDA of 2.38 times at the end of June. We continue to target taking leverage to the 2.0 times level, which we expect to attain with anticipated increase in EBITDA, reductions in CapEx and with the balance of tower sales proceeds. We also remain actively engaged in discussions with potential investors for our data center business. Gross debt stood at ₱265.4 billion, of which 15% are dollar-denominated and 5% unhedged. The average interest cost for the period stood at 4.9% pretax, while the average life of debt is 6.85 years. Total CapEx amounted to ₱35.1 billion, consisting of network and IT CapEx of ₱32.7 billion and business CapEx of ₱2.4 billion. CapEx intensity or CapEx to service revenue stood at 34% for the first semester versus 41% in 2023. Of the ₱33 million commitment, net of advances to major CapEx vendors, the remaining commitment has been reduced to ₱4.4 billion. For 2024, our CapEx guidance is ₱75 billion to ₱78 billion, consistent with our aim to continue to reduce CapEx. The increase in the number of unique 5G devices and 5G data traffic continues into 2024, which we expect to be sustained as the price of 5G devices trends lower. 5G adoption is one of the emerging growth streams of our Individual business. Now moving to Maya, our fintech investment. Maya Bank continues to be the country's number one digital bank on the back of the company's exceptional growth in deposit, credit and merchant acquiring. At the end of June 24, Maya Bank's strong product appeal was reflected in the remarkable growth in customers to 4 million. Deposit balances rose to ₱32.8 billion, driven by Maya's innovative products and higher interest rates linked to everyday spending. Life-to-date, Maya Bank disbursed a total of ₱46.8 billion in loans and had 1.2 million borrowers, 133% growth year-on-year. Maya has scaled its lending business with Maya Bank turning cash flow positive in the second quarter of the year. Maya offers the widest range of loan products among the digital banks, catering to both consumers and MSMEs. Year-on-year, consumer loans grew 2.7 times while MSME loans rose by 6.7 times. Complementing these are lending solutions to key partners such as device financing for PLDT and Smart. Maya Bank expects to further expand its loan book through strategic initiatives, such as loan channeling with Tala. Finally, Maya continues to enter into partnerships that supports its financial inclusion objectives. Now for the guidance. Our outlook for 2024 continues to be one of optimism. We affirm our previously announced guidance that includes mid-single-digit top line growth underpinned by robust increases in data and broadband revenues. With our continuing pursuit of operating efficiencies and cost rationalization, our EBITDA is anticipated to grow by mid-single-digit as we aim to expand EBITDA margin beyond the current level. Telco core for '24 is expected to land north of ₱35 billion. Consistent with our commitment to lower CapEx headline number, our CapEx guidance for '24 remains at ₱75 billion to ₱78 billion, including fresh CapEx for the year, and the deliveries of prior year's commitments. We remain committed to a 60% dividend payout to working to bring leverage back to our target of 2.0 times net debt-to-EBITDA level and achieving positive free cash flow after dividends. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] There's a question from Arthur Pineda. Arthur?

Hi. Can you hear me?

Hello? Arthur, let's try it again.

Can you hear me, now?

If you can speak a little louder, we can hear you a little faint, but yeah, we can.

Okay. Is this better?

Better. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Yes, several questions, please. Firstly, on Maya, can you please clarify the comment on Maya Bank turning cash flow positive? Do you mean that Maya Bank itself has turned profitable in 2Q? I'm not familiar with the concept of a bank turning cash flow positive. So I'm just needing to clarify that. Second question I had is with regard to the data center. Previously, there were talks of monetization plans for that asset. Is that still a route that the company is pursuing? And third question I had is with regard to mobile revenues. When we look at this, this seems to have slowed down versus 1Q's momentum. What's dragging down the momentum on ARPUs?

On the cash flow for Maya, if you want?

Yes, that's correct. Maya Bank is now cash flow positive but not Maya as a whole, okay? We're talking only of Maya Bank.

Sorry, because the concept of the bank on cash flow is a bit different when we think of banks, because it is in the basis of cash. So when we think of that, are you referring to Maya Bank being profitable? Is that how we should interpret this?

Banks always have cash, right? If you don't have cash, then you're in trouble. So from a cash standpoint, I think the loan-to-deposit ratio of Maya Bank is about anywhere, between 20% to 22%. As of last count, deposits are about ₱32.8 billion. Loans on books are anywhere between ₱6 billion to ₱7 billion only, so they have cash. Now from a profit standpoint, I believe they are profitable on their own. Because what Maya Holdings, or whatever the parent company is, have allocated certain of their overhead expenses down to the bank. So it's not clear to us, to be honest, whether - to what extent they are profitable on their own without allocation of head office overhead. Arguably, some of those expenses, like IT, which I understand service part of the IT requirements of the bank, are operated out of head office. So that might be a basis for adjusting expenses down to the bank. But I think from a contribution to head office expenses, it is already positive on an accounting basis, right? And yes, I think that's the short answer.

And then on the data center question, sir?

But as Danny said, taken in the round, it is cash flow negative. Because principally, the digital wallet is still negative from a cash flow standpoint and accounting standpoint in terms of P&L, right? But their losses, Maya's losses consolidated was down to ₱1.9 billion for the first half from, was it ₱6 billion last year? So that's a significant improvement. And two things, one is Maya expects to breakeven on an accounting basis and cash flow positive in the month of December this year. And the losses will drop from the first half of ₱1.9 billion down to about ₱500 million for the second half of this year. So the total losses will be about ₱2.4 billion accounting-wise and still cash flow negative taken for the whole year, but at least EBITDA - well, they'll be EBITDA positive by December and accounting equilibrium by December, right?

Second question, sir, was on the data center monetization, whether that is still on?

Well, there are ongoing discussions. And I think we're down to the short strokes. We're down to two - the valuation has been agreed, and it's a combination of old shares or existing shares and new shares. So PLDT will sell a portion of our outstanding shares in VITRO, which is the parent of the data centers, to this particular foreign investor. And there will be new shares issued to bring new money in, into VITRO for two things. The new investor wants debts to be reduced somewhat. And the other bit is that the substantial portion of the new funds injected in VITRO will fund the expansion of VITRO in respect of Phase 2 of the Sta. Rosa hyperscaler data center and future data centers. So in the medium term, VITRO does not need to borrow, because there's quite a substantial injection of funds into it VITRO to fund the expansion plans of VITRO.

The last question had to do with what seems to be a slowdown in mobile, Kristine?

So it's true, there is actually a slowdown in the mobile revenues in quarter two. But a lot of that has to do with the industry as well. So if you recall, in quarter one, we actually had an industry growth of somewhere in the 6% to 7%. But in quarter two, growth was just at 3% to 4%. It's linked to the early closure of classes as well, because there was a change in the school calendar. So with classes being cut short much earlier, there was actually limited mobility plus, of course, the heat and the temperature was actually not to our favor. But we are seeing a lot of momentum coming third quarter. So, we expect actually the growth to bounce back.

Very clear. Thank you very much.

Next set of questions from John Te.

Hi, Melissa. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can. Thanks, John.

Thank you. Three questions for me, maybe best if I go over them one-by-one. First is on Home broadband. It's 1% growth, but I understand you published record net adds and stable fiber ARPU. So I suspect the gap would mostly come from the legacy business. Is my understanding correct, as in a decline in the legacy business?

Hi John, thanks for the question. You are correct, actually. If you look at our fiber business, fiber business actually had 39,000 net adds as well as 7% year-on-year growth. So we actually saw a total of about ₱911 million in the second quarter alone for our fiber business. The gap that you're seeing is actually the decline in our legacy business. So a lot of that is in our copper, our VVDSL as well as our old copper lines and some voice calling. So it's all of those legacy businesses that are actually dragging down the overall performance for Home. But barring all of those legacy revenues, if you look at really only the future revenues, in particular, fiber, which is the area most contested in the market, we are seeing a 7% year-on-year growth.

Thank you. And a quick follow-up to that...

Yes, ₱1.9 billion. Yes, so it's a ₱1.9 billion total drop in our legacy revenues.

DSL and what, so we're down to ₱1.6 billion in revenue terms for the legacy. And we think the rate of decline in revenue will be modest. It's down at the bottom of the curve. So the growth in home broadband should be more transparent to you. Yes. To the consequences of our legacy assets.

Did that answer your question, John?

Yes, very much. Thank you. A quick follow-up is...

Also net results are better for the months of July and so far in August. I think gross is also higher the first 1.5 months in the second half, compared to the other first six months.

Yes, that's correct. We are actually seeing a significant increase on a month-to-month basis. We saw that increase coming through from June as well as continuing to go through in July as well as August. That, coupled with an improvement with our overall churn performance. As Danny had mentioned, churn in the first quarter was 1.8%, churn in the second quarter has actually gone down to 1.5%. So those two things actually coming together, we'll actually see momentum in the Home business actually picking up, and we'll see a much, much stronger second half of this year.

And on the network side, we have to add ports.

Yes. To complement the growth in the second half of Home, we're seeing an acceleration of ports rollout as well. So if you combine their strength in installs and the lower churn and now more ports for the second half, you will see the acceleration of the performance of Home for the second half of the year.

So consequences on the expansion by transport network as well, because the anticipated growth in traffic from better installs in the second half.

And I think one of the things that should be underscored is that the performance in 2024, if we end strong, is going to give us an even stronger performance in 2025. One of the reasons why 2024 was a little bit subdued in the first half was because 2023, we pretty much slowed down both the installs and the rollouts and that affected our first half revenue. But if you see the acceleration in the second half, the impact of that in 2025 is actually going to be quite big. So we're preparing for a stronger 2025. And we want to make sure that we do not lose the momentum of what we have in the second half of the year so that '25 should be a stronger performance for Home.

And your second question?

Thank you for the very comprehensive responses. Second is maybe on prepaid fiber unit economics. Because I understand in the past, you mentioned that this did not make sense to roll out or build. So maybe an update whether there was an update about the change in strategy, and whether this business can be a potential profit driver for PLDT moving forward.

Sure. Look, the prepaid fiber economics are definitely challenging, right? I mean, one of the big things that is different about the fiber business as well as our mobile business is the amount of CapEx required to actually connect the customer in the first instance. So that's clearly a big difference between fiber economics as well as mobile. Where we started with prepaid fiber was actually within the existing base. So customers that were either having difficulties, with regards to their financial situation, they wanted an alternative different payment method, we actually went after those customers first and we gave them the option, to go through prepaid, right? So we've actually -- that's where a lot of the economics actually are in your favor. Because if you think of the setup costs and the setup fees, they are largely sunk costs. You've actually already done the roll. You've already done the truck roll. You've already got the CPE up there. So being able to extract more value out of that customer is only going to be accretive to you from a top end as well as a bottom line perspective. From a new acquisition point of view, we have opened up prepaid fiber in select areas. So in areas where we have ample capacity in our fiber network, we are making prepaid fiber available. It does, however, come with a slightly different economics or a slightly different commercial agreement. We are asking for an upfront payment fee from the customer to be able to show commitment that they actually do want to make sure that it's not just something that they want to do once and once only. And we're also making sure that it is in areas where we have capacity. Unlike our competitors, PLDT actually has a utilization rate of our ports that are actually extremely high. So we're sitting at about 60%. So more often than not, because that 60% ports and the 40% leftover are actually scattered throughout the Philippines, right? So it's not just all evenly done. So in areas where we do have capacity, we will make it available and we'll actually push it down into different segments of the market, and we'll open that up. And we'll open it up, making sure fiber is more available to more people. But we are being very, very selective with it as well to make sure that it is value-accretive to us. I will add that in May of this year or actually, it was June this year, we did launch our 899, right. The most aggressive postpaid and the cheapest postpaid plan that we have available in the market for fiber. And so we have seen an uptake on the 899. Now that obviously still has very similar -- because it is still a postpaid plan, that does have a little bit more predictable economics than, say, for example, a prepaid service, right? What we are seeing is customers are availing of the 899 rather than actually going through the prepaid option. When provided an option for both, we're actually seeing them self-select on the 899, and they're actually preferring to take that service moving forward. So I guess, I couldn't give you full details as to how the economics are going to pan out, because I think the fullness of time really is what's going to reveal how often someone is going to recharge. However, we are very much committed to making sure that we extract the maximum value from our CapEx that we've got it. So we will make it available and we'll actually push to open up our fiber to as many customers as we possibly can.

Thank you very much. Final question for Danny, maintenance question on costs. Personnel expenses in 2Q alone, I think there was a big jump versus 2Q last year. But I understand that the first half versus first half number is kind of normalized. So is it just correct to understand this is a difference in timing in terms of booking, some of your personnel expenses?

The increase in repairs and maintenance was actually due to the increase in technical service fees to different suppliers, like Cisco, Huawei, principally from the site expansion program.

Yes, just to clarify, I think there was also a spike in personnel, as in manpower expenses, wages. Could you comment on that?

You mean the compensation of 1%?

Yes, correct.

It just increased by 1%.

Yes, so the second quarter versus second quarter number, I think, was high single-digit. But the first half year, correct that it was muted. So is my understanding correct that this could be a timing effect on your end?

It does include merit increases for this year.

I see. Thank you very much. That'd be all for me.

Thanks, John. There's a question in the Q&A box from Zhiwei of Macquarie. Your first half EBITDA margin came in at 52%. Can you articulate your plan to push above 52% in the second half of '24 to meet your target?

Come again, sorry?

Our EBITDA margin came in at 52%. Can we articulate our plans to push that margin above 52% in the second half?

Well, we will try by reducing the operating expenses. But most likely, it will land between 52% and 53%.

And then there's a follow-up question. Can you discuss how much incremental earnings from Sta. Rosa's initial 20-megawatt capacity can be expected?

So with the data center business, it usually takes some time before the revenue ramps up. But we are expecting within the next 18 months, come the opening of Sta. Rosa in October, that we should be able to extract anywhere between ₱600 million to ₱1.5 billion in additional revenues for our DC business.

Well, that's what they committed that they're going to breakeven by December. When I say they, I mean Maya committed that.

Next set of questions from Clare Alvarez of Guild Securities. Why is voice revenue big? Is it pure voice or combined with other products?

Sorry, the question was why is voice revenue big? And is it combined with - so let me refer to - I think the question is referring to legacy, right? So legacy revenue actually has a few things inside there. Voice is one of them, right? So an example of legacy revenue would be, say, for example, our copper, right, our telephony-only, some of the voice international calling that we may have. It also includes things like calling cards. I know it might sound a little bit silly. But actually, we have had long for some product set that have been out there for quite some time that some of our customers still avail of, right, so some of the calling cards that they may actually get, prepaid calling cards in some of the malls, et cetera. So our legacy revenue actually has a lot of these older things that we've accumulated over many, many, many years that may not be actively marketed today, however, we still do have customers that are purchasing them and continue to avail. Now as voice-over-IP, data and broadband, become more and more prevalent, you're seeing that decline come through, right? So it is declining. It's just that there are still some of those customers that do continue to use those services. And obviously, whilst especially since a lot of these are actually sunk costs from a network point of view, we extract the value as long as we possibly can. However, we have seen that decline, but we should see that decline actually start to dissipate, as it starts to become now the long tail.

Yes, absolutely. For the wireless, not only are we going to expand our 4G coverage as well as our 4G capacity, we have to move into the 5G space. So, we are entering to roll out aggressively on 5G as well. On wireline, we are also going to be rolling out as well. The market for wireline, especially as you bring down the price point, actually expands. And so, we have to keep on rolling out the ports to meet those demands.

Yes, certainly, we are actually looking into digitalizing our retailers. We've invested in the infrastructure that will accommodate the same as we work with our fintech partners. Our expansion in the channels extends beyond the stores, not just the company-owned stores and our partners but also the online e-commerce and digital stores. Thank you.

Do you have a follow-up question, Arthur?

My side? Sorry, no question on my side.

Maybe I'll just check with the people who are here. Any questions?

Jarred from AB Capital. Just have a quick follow-up question on broadband as well. Two questions for me. The first, what percentage of net adds moving forward do you see from your cheaper 899 postpaid plan as well as your prepaid fiber plans? And the second question is, can you talk a bit about the decision to enter the prepaid market at a slightly higher price point than your competitors at ₱999 per month compared to the usual ₱700? Thank you.

Okay, thanks. I'll start with your first question, I think, which was what percentage of our plans moving forward are going to be 899 versus prepaid. At this point in time, I can share with you what we're experiencing. We've actually launched both 899 as well as prepaid. And what we've seen is more of our customers are actually gravitating towards the 899 plan versus the prepaid at this point in time. We have seen 899 actually hit a high when it was first introduced of about 20% of our total new connect mix. But we've actually seen that number dissipate now, right? It's actually changed. And we're seeing actually more and more of our Unli-All plans being sold as customers look for the overall value within the household, right? So I think some of the communication that we've had and the information about Unli-All, I'm sure you're aware, it's an unlimited calling from your landline, unlimited broadband at higher speeds with signal as well as now mobile. The value actually included in those plans are really starting to cut through, and we're seeing customers avail of those plans and seeing it as a total household spend rather than just only on the, say. For example, on the broadband side of things. So we've seen it as high as 20%. That's actually come down now. And we're seeing that sort of hover between the 5% and 10%. Now in terms of prepaid, to be honest with you, we're still actually ramping up our installed capacity. As our Chairman actually mentioned, we have seen a huge increase in terms of demand over the June, July, August period. And so what we'll need to do is actually bring in additional installed capacity as well as additional sales capacity to be able to look at the prepaid side of things. Because I think the market demand that we're seeing right now, it's really not representative of what the market really wants. I think it's really coming down to leveraging, the existing channels that we do have. And where they're most comfortable in, and where they've been attacking has really been in the 899-and-up space. We think that there is still a bigger market opportunity there for the prepaid. And so, as we build our installation capacity to serve them, we'll also be building out specific sales channels to target the prepaid market.

Derrick from CLSA. So several questions, first, on the data center side. On Sta. Rosa, I recall it, it was first introduced at 100 megawatts. Can you remind us what changed from 100 megawatts to 50 megawatts, and if you're able to share also the EBITDA margins for existing data centers, if that's okay?

So we had originally planned Sta. Rosa, the facility can, by design, accommodate up to 100 megawatts of total. But based on prevailing, what we see as near-term demand plus a diversification on the locations that we'd like to build because we're not stopping with the 11 data centers. We found it prudent to stay at 50 megawatts total or translated to roughly 36 megawatts IT load. From an EBITDA perspective, our data center business is very healthy and very comparable to other large progressive DC players from an EBITDA perspective.

Okay, understood. So on the margin side, would you say it's near to the consolidated margins of PLDT?

Slightly less than the 52%, but there are certain deals that are above that. But as an average, it's slightly less than the telco EBITDA levels.

Okay. Another question, on Maya, so life-to-date loans, are all those on-balance sheet loans? And would you able to remind us about the dynamic with Tala?

Loans is about ₱7 billion, as per latest loan balance on books. The amount of loans disbursed, substantially renew existing loans are a factor about [15] times. So my understanding is that we charge an upfront fee, something on average of about 6%, take it up from the - an upfront payment. It is really very short-term. Look at the velocity disbursed but also the carry income. The amount of carry income is really substantial for the. But they have to put more loans. The velocity of loans disbursed to carry more loans. The [carry rate] is really what is it.

Okay. Sorry, more on that point on the loan side, there are no BSP securities or government securities in this mix still there in the government securities there?

They do. The level of deposits is about so I agree to it. The financial bank way below standard loan and the interest spread, the effective interest rate is probably in the 70s Big spread. It's a bit more volume. really push it to [willing] cover the losses of royalty.

Okay. Thank you.

There's a question from Albizia Capital from Phasin Ratanalert. On fiber broadband, can you please share the market share trend, compared to the previous quarter?

Well, I'm just trying to think, from a revenue share point of view, I guess, it's very difficult to be able to share it for the first half, because we've only seen Globe results come out as of today, right? So I think Converge will be releasing theirs in - I think, it's tomorrow, actually. So I won't be able to comment on the latest figures. But I can say that when we looked at market shares on a three-way basis, right, so Globe and Converge side-by-side at the end of quarter one. We saw a slight increase in terms of revenue share for PLDT. And there was also a slight increase as well of subscriber share, right? So subscriber share was just small. But actually, the one that we measure and we monitor the most is going to be on the revenue share side of things. So, we saw a slight revenue share gain in the first quarter of 2024. Sorry, go ahead.

For 2025, I think we're still in the budget process. So the Home team is still kind of figure out exactly how many fiber ports we want to roll out for next year. But I would think, or I would mention that it would be more than what we did this year because of the accelerated demand that we saw due to the price reduction. Secondly, the concentration of the rollout for this year was in Greenfield areas. Now there is a combination of rolling out in both Greenfield and Brownfield areas simply because the market for 888 has just expanded in the Brownfield area. So, I would think they would dimension a much bigger rollout in 2025 than in 2024.

There are no further questions. So I'll now turn the floor back to Mr. Pangilinan for his closing remarks.

Thank you for your attendance today. We look forward to seeing you again, and we expect, November 12, is it, for third quarter results. Thank you.

Thank you. Join us for some refreshments.