Profits Soar for PhilWeb in 2009

MANILA, PHILIPPINES - Leading Philippine gaming company, PhilWeb Corporation, recently announced that its unaudited net income for last year jumped 89% over 2008 results.

That translates to about PHP552 million (about $12.11 million) and the local Filipino technology enabling partner of Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) said that bulk of the profits last year came from its core gaming operations.

Total revenue for 2009 was PHP 820 million (about $18 million), 82% higher than 2008 marks.


PhilWeb's gaming operations consist of PAGCOR eCafes (internet gaming kiosks), online games Basketball Jackpot (betting on end scores of local hoops games), Premyo sa Resibo (Prize for Receipts, an SMS-based raffle program run in partnership with Philippine tax authorities), and its Bid Wars mobile game experienced a 126% percent increase over 2008 and contributed PHP523 million to the company's coffers.

Another PHP29 million in profits came from PhilWeb's investment in ISM Communications Corporation.

According to PhilWeb President Dennis Valdes:

"Another PHP29 million was contributed from PhilWeb's equity investment in ISM Corp. Our unrealized gain of PHP2.4 billion from our investment in ISM is a real, albeit hidden, jewel in our balance sheet."

PhilWeb's PHP633 million investment in ISM is now worth over PHP3 billion after year-end closing price of ISM reached PHP0.065 per share.

Valdes further added:

"We had an excellent 2009 but are evenmore excited about our prospects in 2010. PhilWeb and ISM's recent acquisition of Acentic GmbH, which provides in-room guest entertainment services to the hospitality industry, will provide us a platform for international expansion. PhilWeb's role in this expansion will be to look at introducing gaming into the Acentic network of over 200,000 rooms, and partner with ISM in growing Acentic's reach into Asia."

Valdes also declared that the expansion plans plus the recent PAGCOR licensing of another venture, PhilWeb Homeplay, Inc. which will allow Filipino players to play casino games online, will help PhilWeb realize its target profit of PHP1 billion this year.

"With the combination of Acentic and PhilWeb Homeplay, we fully expect our 2010 bottom line to exceed a billion pesos," said Valdes.