Al Panlilio: I can just start, but I think, we haven’t signed a term budgets for next year, but obviously, we’re going to target growth for revenue line. Some of the initiatives that will be on stream next year will be our 11th data center, which will be on stream by June of next year. So we will have the six-month benefit of that, and hopefully full year in the following year. I think we’re showing a positive momentum on mobile and we continue to grow that. There’s still some growth areas still in — that we are also pursuing. Although Danny did say that, it’s starting to get to maybe a financially-challenged market — segment of the market. That’s why I think the ability of Home, to offer both fiber and fixed wireless solutions, will be helpful in that push. And I know that Enterprise continues to push digital transformation across the Enterprise space of customers. Do you want to add a few things? Melissa.
Melissa de Dios: The next question, how does Maya Bank plan to strike a balance between funding costs and interest income, given the attractive deposit rates your currently offering?
Shailesh Baidwan: Yes, we absolutely are trying to strike a balance, in fact, what we have managed and seen as a deliberate effort on our part, is making sure that the customers where it’s high engagement banking, see a growth in both the customers and all the balances over there, which is where we get a lot of rich information on the customers, and these are customers who, for certain periods of time — positive balances, but also over a period of time, need access to credit. And by virtue of seeing the transaction behavior, we are able to score them and provide them with Maya Credit and that piece has worked really well. What we did see was that we had balances in our personal loans product, which was a time deposit-equivalent product.
And in that, we had some customers with high balances because of the interest rate. What we have done is we are reworking that product. And as a result of that, we have seen some reduction in the balances on that product. So if you look at our performance quarter-on-quarter, the number of customers that we have in Maya Bank has actually gone up, but the number of — the amount of deposit balance has actually stayed pretty much flat, but that’s helped us. And the second is, of course, growing the loan book. At this stage, as I mentioned, we have disbursed over ₱16 million – ₱16 billion of loan. These are largely short tenure loans. So as a result, of course, our outstanding loan book is modest. But as we expand into longer tenure rules, as I mentioned, personal loans, SME loans, we will also start seeing our loan-to-deposit ratio go up.
So we’ve had a deliberate strategy of making sure that we’re growing the number of customers that we have. We are getting the transaction behavior and payment behaviors, which is helping us. And that helps us with high engagement banking, but we’re very conscious of making sure that we’re not — at this stage, getting encumbered with high balance deposits at high interest rates, and that’s what we have pretty much worked on over the course of the last couple of quarters and we continue to refine that.
Melissa de Dios: Use the Raise Hand, Arthur.
Arthur Pineda: Can you hear me?
Melissa de Dios: Yes, we can.
Arthur Pineda: Several questions, please. Firstly, on Mobile. I’m just wondering what can be done to address the revenue growth caps versus your competitor? Now it’s — PLDT has had the benefit of network upgrades for quite a while now with the network advantages being claimed. What are the challenges in taking the premium users away from your competitor? Second question I had is with regard to the data center. Can you get some idea on the expected contributions from this, you’ve mentioned contribution or commercialization by early 2024. How much can this generate into the year? And is this immediately profitable? Or is there a ramp-up phase needed with utilization? And final question comes back to Mobile. I’m just wondering what does it take to get industry revenue growth tracking alongside broader GDP growth.
When you look at other markets in Asia, it seems to be tracking well. Philippines seems to be an outlier, as I’m just wondering what can be done so that you’re back to mid-single digits?
Al Panlilio: I’ll let Alex answer the Mobile question now, exactly.
Unidentified Company Representative: Yes, we’re looking at our growth for 2024, riding on the restart of our network expansion, as well as the delivery of platform capabilities that will allow us to deploy targeted, customized and very timely offers, that are indeed relevant and value part. Obviously, there’s a SKU for our customers on postpaid business. We realize that we have work to do there in order to not just upsell, but also to encourage even greater acquisition. Of course, we’ll have to bank on the strength of the network. We have been looking at improvements in terms of speed as well as quality. And we also continue to work on our indoor coverage where most of the mobile consumption has shifted even as increased mobility has already been seen for the first few quarters this year.
Al Panlilio: Yes, so for — if you look at the sub numbers were ahead based on this third quarter report, we’re at 55.2 global, but said yesterday it’s 4.7. So our task is how do we… If we’re not going to be able to use this, we have to work on moving forward.
Arthur Pineda: Revenue growth on the Fiber Homes from the revenue growth?
Unidentified Company Representative: Well, the programs that we have lined up are geared towards accelerating mobile data burn. A number of our customers have continued to enjoy the better offers, but I think we have to see velocity. That’s why the emphasis on asset burn, as well as understanding the segments which require a higher bandwidth allocations. And at the same time, the related offers that might be interesting for this target market, whether it involves fintech solution, entertainment and the like.
Danny Yu: Thank you, Alex. I’ll ask Biboy [ph] to answer the data center question.
Unidentified Company Representative: Thank you for the question on data centers. I think the advantage of the PLDT platform is, we have available capacity. And secondly, we will be the first to market, to actually have a hyperscale data center in the country. This is very advantageous for us because as companies in the public sector transform digitally, they’re looking for colocation services to meet their digital infrastructure requirements. And we will be in the best position to capture most of this, given those two factors of available capacity, and the first to market with a hyperscaler data center by the middle of next year.
Arthur Pineda: Also, can you monetize on both businesses?
Unidentified Company Representative: Yes. So if you look at the data center, obviously, it is like building a house that you need tenants. So we would need to find the tenants to fill it up. There will be a ramp-up phase. We are looking for an anchor tenant to fill up the space that we have, and the anchor tenants will come in the form of hyperscalers — Eastern or Western hyperscalers. And as soon as they ramp up, then it will be easier for us to monetize the colocation space that they’ve taken in our data center.
Al Panlilio: We did — we have started serving the space and we think — very warm on a few big engagements with hyperscalers, one from the West, one from the East, so maybe two from the West. And that’s something that we’ll really be working hard on. So we want to make sure that we can get it as soon as possible. And in part — we’re looking — at what’s available by June next year, is 10 megawatts, the third portion for not by November, in early part of 2024, would be the balance 16 megawatt. So the teams are pushing very hard to get contracted, or even prior to the completion of the biggest revenue. I hope Arthur, we’ve answered your questions.
Arthur Pineda: Just maybe to clarify, are there any plans to find any strategic partner which would help you accelerate take-up levels on your data centers?
