By James A. Loyola
PhilWeb Corporation reported a 48 percent jump in revenues to ₱149 million in the third quarter of the year due the strong performance of 73 electronic gaming outlets.
In a statement, the firm said these outlets are either directly owned by PhilWeb or under the Joint Cooperation Agreement signed with the Palmary group of companies last March.
“E-bingo has been a pleasant surprise for PhilWeb. Now, aside from our revenues from e-Games outlets and our e-casino software services, we also have revenue streams from e-bingo outlets and a network of over a thousand e-bingo machines deployed throughout the country,” said PhilWeb Chairman Gregorio Araneta III.
He noted that, “With the new sources of revenue, we have doubled our growth engines for the coming year.”
“We are even more pleased because our EBITDA surged to ₱19 million from a negative ₱9.6 million a year ago. This is the highest quarterly EBITDA we have achieved in the past three years,” said PhilWeb President Dennis Valdes.
However, Valdes said,“We still have a small Net Loss for the quarter, just ₱4.5 million, much less than the ₱25-million Net Loss in the third quarter of 2018.
“This shows that we are well on track regarding our commitment to getting PhilWeb back to its former profitability levels, during which times we were able to pay out high dividends to stockholders and generate significant share price increases as well.”
“With our move to enter the e-bingo space in addition to our strong presence in e-casino, PhilWeb remains committed to our role in consistently increasing the revenues of Pagcor, which we have done for over 13 years,” added Araneta.
PhilWeb is an accredited service provider to Pagcor, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation, for its network of electronic gaming and electronic bingo outlets.
Its wholly-owned subsidiaries include BigGame, Inc. and Easy E-Bingo, Inc., which operate e-Games and e-bingo outlets respectively.