Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company

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Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company
Kompanya ng Teleponong Pangmalayuan ng Pilipinas
Public
Traded as PSE: TEL
NYSE: PHI
Industry Telecommunications
Founded Manila, Philippines
(1928; 96 years ago (1928))
Headquarters Makati, Philippines
Key people
 Manuel V. Pangilinan
(Chairman of the Board, and President & CEO)
Products Cellular telephony
Digital Services
Fixed-line telephony
Information technology
Satellite communications
Electricity distribution
Broadcast media
Number of employees
 17,496 (2014) [1]
Slogan We're Changing Lives
Website www.pldt.com

The Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PSE: TEL, NYSE: PHI), which was recently renamed to PLDT Inc., is the largest telecommunications and digital services company in the Philippines.[2] The latest consolidated service revenues reported for the full year of 2015 is at ₱171.1 billion, and net income at ₱35.2 billion.[3]

History

PLDT was established on November 28, 1928, by the Philippine Government act. Philippine legislature and approved by then Governor-General Henry L. Stimson by means of a merger of four telephone companies under operation of the American telephone company GTE.[4] Known as Act 3436, the bill granted PLDT a 50-year charter and the right to establish a Philippine telephone network linking major points nationwide. However, PLDT had to meet a 40-day deadline to start implementing the network, which would be implemented over a period of one to four years.

By the 1930s, PLDT had an expansive fixed-line network and for the first time linked the Philippines to the outside world via radiotelephone services, connecting the Philippines to the United States and other parts of the world.

Telephone service in the Philippines was interrupted due to World War II. At the end of the war, the Philippines' communications infrastructure was in ruins. U.S. military authorities eventually handed over the remains of the communications infrastructure to PLDT in 1947, and with the help of massive U.S. aid to the Philippines during the 1940s and 1950s, PLDT recovered so quickly that its telephone subscribers outpaced that of pre-war levels by 1953.

On December 20, 1967, a group of Filipino entrepreneurs and businessmen led by Ramon Cojuangco took control of PLDT after buying its shares from the American telecommunications company GTE. The group took control of PLDT's management on January 1, 1968, with the election of Gregorio S. Licaros and Cojuangco as chairman and president of PLDT, respectively. A few months later, PLDT's main office in Makati (known today as the Ramon Cojuangco Building) was opened, and PLDT's expansion programs begin, hoping to bring reliable telephone services to the rural areas.

PLDT was permitted to operate during Martial Law. During the 1970s, PLDT was nationalized by the government of then-President Ferdinand Marcos and in 1981, in compliance of then existing policy of the Philippine government to integrate the Philippine telecommunications industry, purchased substantially all of the assets and liabilities of Republic Telephone Company, becoming the country's telephone monopoly. Under this monopoly, service expansion were severely curtailed or practically nonexistent. In the Martial Law years people would apply for phone service only to wait for years and years on end behind an impossibly long application backlog. It is not unheard of for people and small businesses back then to barter for a single telephone line in the black market for tens of thousands of pesos. The incumbent Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew referred to the situation when visiting the Philippines during the term of President Fidel V. Ramos. He said, albeit in jest, “In the Philippines 95% of the population has no telephone, while the remaining 5% are waiting for that dial tone.”[5][6]

After President Marcos was overthrown in 1986, the company was re-privatized as Ramon's son, Antonio "Tonyboy" O. Cojuangco, Jr. became PLDT chief.[7] By 1995, with the passage of the Telecommunications Act and the subsequent deregulation of the Philippine telecommunications industry, the company has been de-monopolized. Later that year, Hong Kong-based First Pacific Company Ltd. acquired a 17.5% stake in PLDT making it the majority owner of the conglomerate. The company's CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan became the new conglomerate's President replacing Cojuangco, who assumed post as Chairman until 2004, when Pangilinan became his successor.[7]

PLDT-Digitel merger

PLDT acquired 51.55% of the shares of Digital Telecommunications Philippines from JG Summit Holdings on March 2011 with the cost of ₱69.2 Billion. Because of this, the shares of Digitel and JG Summit in the PSE surges while PLDT's shares remained unchanged. In the deal, JG Summit will have a 12% share in PLDT. It was finalized by the National Telecommunications Commission on October 26, 2011.

Other investments

Twenty percent of MERALCO shall be sold to PLDT, according to the Lopez family who owns the Philippine's largest electric distributor on March 13, 2009. The deal is set to be done in the third quarter of 2009 with the cost of 20 billion pesos. The said action was done to prevent the hostile takeover of San Miguel Corporation, which already owns a large portion of MERALCO.[8]

Wireless

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See also: Smart Communications, Talk 'N Text, and Sun Cellular

PLDT operates its wireless cellular services through its subsidiaries, namely Smart Communications, Talk 'N Text, Sun Cellular.

Media ventures

In 1998, MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of the PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund, acquired Nation Broadcasting Corporation from the joint consortium of the Yabut family and real estate magnate Manny Villar. In 2007, MediaQuest bought the shares of GV Broadcasting Systems, a licensed direct-to-home (DTH) satellite television provider from Satventures Inc. of the Galang family. With this, GV changed its corporate name to MediaScape Inc.

On March 2, 2010, PLDT announced that its subsidiary, MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., has acquired 100 percent of TV5 Network, Inc. (TV5) and Primedia Inc from Media Prima and former PLDT Chairman Antonio "Tonyboy" O. Cojuangco, Jr.

Ownership

The Company's ownership is divided among the public (53.86%),[9] Philippine Telephone Investments Corporation (12.05%), Metro Pacific Resources, Inc. (9.98%); non-Philippine subsidiaries of First Pacific Company Limited (25.6%), NTT DoCoMo, Inc. (14.5%), NTT Communications Corp. (5.85%) and Manuel V. Pangilinan (0.11%).

Subsidiaries and affiliates

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Main article: List of assets owned by Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company

Sports team

Slogans

  • The Telecommunications Company (1989-1993)
  • Keeping You in Touch (1993-1996)
  • Touching Lives (1996-1998)
  • Clearly for You (1998-2000)
  • The Power of Convergence (2000-2004)
  • We're Changing Lives (2008-present)

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Mission
  3. ↑ [1]
  4. ↑ PHILIPPINE LONG DISTANCE TELEPHONE COMPANY retrieved May 7, 2013
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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