PLDT Inc., formerly Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company, reported cost overruns to the tune of $880 million as a result of its four-year network transformation, The Register reported. Investors learned of the losses, most of which came at the hands of Huawei, Cisco and Ericsson, during the company’s recent quarterly report.
From 2019 to 2022, PLDT and its subsidiary Smart Communications executed an aggressive network transformation, which included an LTE, 5G and fiber to the home rollout, plus a submarine cable expansion and core network transformation.
“These multi-year investments were designed to regain and sustain network and technology leadership, as well as provide the best customer experience,” PLDT said. Unfortunately, the telecom discovered that its accounting systems were unable to manage multi-year contracts, according to The Register.
“It was not an over-order, but really just [a failure] in the monitoring of the capex,” CEO Alfredo Panlilio told investors. “We were not able to include the multi-year contracts.” As a result, the telecom is implementing controls in its policies, procedures and investing in better tracking tools.
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