by pna
Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), the country's largest power distributor, on Monday reported a consolidated core net income for the nine months of the year amounting to
P12.9 billion, up
11 percent from
P11.9 billion for the same period last year.
Meralco officials, in a briefing, said that consolidated net income for the period reached P13.6 billion, 37 percent higher than the P10 billion in 2011.
Meralco chairman
Manuel Pangilinan said that given the company's positive performance in the nine-month period, the power distributor was looking at a core net income of P16 billion.
"Given Meralco's performance to-date and the outlook for the rest of the year, we wish to advise our upgraded 2012 guidance for core earnings of P16 billion. Based on continuing strong sales in October, we're trending slightly north of 7 percent. Of course, we don't know how November and December are likely to turnout, and the slightly higher distribution charge for the second half for this year compared to the first half," Pangilinan said.
Earlier, Pangilinan was looking at a full-year core income of P15.5 billion, higher than last year's full-year income of P14.9 billion.
Volume of energy sold during the first nine months reflected an eight percent growth despite the number of severe weather disturbances and holidays during the period.
Consolidated revenues, which consist largely of electricity sales, increased by 14 percent to P214.7 billion, driven by the higher volume of electricity distributed as well as the higher average purchase price during the period, due largely to the increased in generation charges.
"The rise in our energy sales volume reflects a resilient economy supported by a stronger domestic consumption and higher government infrastructure spending. We continue to be optimistic of our business, having seen the better-than-expected results and are committed to implement capital expenditures to be in excess of P11 billion to further improve network reliability," Pangilinan said.
Billed customers grew to 5.2 million, a total of over 130,000 new customer accounts during the nine month period.
Meralco president Oscar Reyes said power generation would be the company's long-term game changer, providing Meralco with the vehicle for complementing its power supply contracting for more competitive prices for its customers.
"Our strategic intent is to build new highly-fuel efficient, environmentally sound and reliable combined cycle baseload and mid-merit plants of up to 2,700 MW (megawatts) over the next five years. We continue to look for opportunities in the grids outside Luzon, and potentially even outside of the Philippines, to enhance our profitability,"Reyes said.
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