PLDT scraps partial sale of data center business
PLDT Inc. is no longer pursuing the partial sale of its data center business. It is focusing instead on growing the segment, showing promising returns for the telco giant.
Manuel V. Pangilinan, PLDT chair, told reporters last week they had ended the talks with potential buyers of Vitro Inc. This subsidiary is worth $1 billion.
“We stopped the process. It is probably too early,” Pangilinan said.
“I think it is best to try to build the business,” he added.
Before this, PLDT was in talks with CVC Capital Partners and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. However, none of the potential deals prospered.
Selling a portion of the data center company was initially planned to help extinguish PLDT’s obligations. But Pangilinan earlier said they could sell other noncritical assets instead to raise funds.
Last month, Pangilinan announced the company’s plan of growing the data center capacity to as much as 500 megawatts (MW).
The telco giant is in the process of developing its 12th data hub, which is designed to have up to 100-MW capacity. It is targeted to be completed by 2028.
The additional facility will rise in a 10-hectare property in General Trias, Cavite.
This plan came after the group powered on its 11th data center in Santa Rosa, Laguna.
The Laguna data center has 50-MW capacity with 18 data halls. Two of them are currently fully occupied, which carries 2 MW each.
PLDT, in total, has 11 data centers with a capacity of up to 100 MW.
In the first quarter, PLDT saw a 37-percent uptick in its data center colocation revenues.
According to real estate consultancy firm Prime Philippines, the country must build more data centers to keep up with its neighbors in Southeast Asia and capture the demand from hyperscalers.
Prime said the country has about 182 MW of data center capacity, with additional 300 MW set to be built in the future.
This is significantly lower compared to regional peers like Indonesia with 514 MW, Malaysia with 640 MW and Singapore with 1,400 MW.
Data centers are hubs housing critical servers and information technology networks. In the Philippines, such facilities are mostly in Cavite, Laguna, Rizal, Tarlac and Metro Manila.
