MANILA, March 17 (PNA) — Manila Electric Company (Meralco) on Monday reported that its 2013 net income is steady at Php 17.2 billion from year-ago’s P17.1 billion.
In a briefing Monday, Meralco President and chief executive officer Oscar Reyes said they achieved their Php 17 billion consolidated core net income target for 2013 after it grew by 4.7 percent to Php 17.02 billion over year-ago’s Php 16.27 billion.
He attributed this development to higher electricity revenues, among others.
Meralco’s energy sales in 2013 rose by four percent to 34,084 gigawathour (GWh) against year-ago’s 32,771GWh.bu
Average distribution rate of the country’s largest electric distribution utility (DU) firm is about Php 1.65 per kilowatthour (KWh).
Reyes said customer base is up by four percent to 5.37 million from year-ago’s 5.19 million, with around 4.9 million of which are accounted for by residential customers while about 0.45 million are commercial entities.
He explained that the increase in the number of their customers along with more resilient network and customer service enabled Meralco to sustain its growth despite the spike in electricity prices, particularly in the latter part of 2013.
Relatively, Meralco’s substation capacity and distribution lines further improved last year throught the completion of five substation projects, nine 115kV substransmission lines and 38 residual distribution lines projects.
These enabled the DU to have 473 megavolt ampere (MVA) in substation capacity and 107 kilometers of new lines.
“The interest of our customers continue to be our key focus and we are committed to perform on this mandate,” Reyes added. (PNA)