Dark clouds continue to loom for the Philippines’ largest telecommunications service provider, as PLDT earlier this week reported that its consolidated core net income in 2015 dropped six percent to P35.2 billion from P37.4 billion the year before.

Its stock price also plummeted 18 percent, which represents the steepest decline for the stock since 1990.

Now, the company is in worse shape than when it started the first quarter of last year with a net income deficit of five percent, and there seems to be no indication that the losses will stop any time soon — not when you’re hemorrhaging subscribers by the millions.

PLDT reported that its consolidated core net income in 2015 dropped six percent to P35.2 billion from P37.4 billion the year before.

PLDT chairman and CEO Manuel Pangilinan said during the press briefing that his company lost an estimated five million subscribers to Globe Telecom, the other giant in the local telecoms industry, over the past year. Pangilinan went on to cite the subscriber exodus as one of the main reasons why PLDT’s service revenues continue to dip, though it remains the biggest player in the prepaid segment, accounting for 55 percent of the market.

Oddly enough, despite the falling numbers, PLDT’s top executive suggested that 2015 wasn’t a bad year for the firm, noting that its consolidated core net income actually exceeded estimates. That’s one way of putting it, I guess. Adopting a glass-half-full mentality may help keep investors on board for the foreseeable future, in addition to maintaining employee morale.

There’s clearly a disconnect between consumers and the other half of the country’s telecommunications duopoly.

However, that alone isn’t enough to keep PLDT out of the quagmire it has created; positive spin aside, there’s clearly a disconnect between consumers and the other half of the country’s telecommunications duopoly, and at a time when the demand for devices and services that keep us connected is at an all-time high. And here I was thinking PLDT and Globe’s stranglehold of the market was a sure thing for both parties.

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Ramon Lopez

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Reviews editor: Ramon "Monch" Lopez has 16 years of professional experience creating and editing content for print and digital publications such as Yahoo. He headed the gadgets-merchandising division of one of the Philippines’ largest retail operators somewhere in between.