MANILA -- Philippine Long Distance Telephone on Tuesday said net profit plunged 34% to 6.2 billion pesos ($132 million) in the first quarter from a year ago as expenses jumped while service revenues barely improved.
Apart from lower core net income, which slid 22% to 7.2 billion pesos, the huge earnings dip also took into account the 1.6 billion pesos impairment losses from PLDT's investment in German e-commerce company Rocket Internet, whose share price lost around 12% in the first quarter. PLDT owns around 6.4% stake in Rocket Internet.
