PLDT chairman and CEO Manuel Pangilinan doesn’t expect its fintech arm Voyager Innovation to make a profit until 2024, after suffering a loss of PHP1.33 billion ($26.2 million) in the first nine months of 2019.
In March, he predicted the business would turnaround by 2021 [1]. Last year the unit posted a loss of PHP3 billion, up from PHP1.2 billion in 2017.
Pangilinan forecasts Voyager to break even, cash-wise by 2023, “so by 2024 we would see the light of day”, BusinessWorld reported.
PLDT’s digital payments unit PayMaya, which is Voyager’s core business, posted strong year-on-year growth in the first nine months of the year.
The company raised $215 million in new funding in the final quarter of last year. In November 2018, Voyager raised $175 million [2] worth of private investments after selling minority stakes to private equity company KKR and Tencent. A month later, it closed a $40 million investment [3] from International Finance Corp and IFC Emerging Asia Fund.
Responding to a question about the possibility of selling more shares in Voyager, Pangilinan said: “I think there’s an effort to raise funding,” the newspaper wrote.
The Philippines company’s mobile unit Smart Communications had a 43 per cent market share by subscribers at end-September.
[1] https://www.mobileworldlive.com/money/news-money/pldt-expects-voyager-turnaround-by-2021/[2] https://www.mobileworldlive.com/featured-content/money-home-banner/pldt-vows-financial-inclusion-drive-after-175m-boost/
[3] https://www.mobileworldlive.com/asia/asia-news/ifc-closes-40m-investment-in-voyager/
