Its wireless business boosted consolidated service revenues by 8.8 percent to P8.268 billion. Subsidiary Digitel Mobile Philippines Inc.’s Sun Cellular continued adding subscribers, reporting a 40.5 percent gain in service revenues from P2.84 billion to P3.991 billion in the same period.

In all, Digitel’s consolidated earnings before income taxes increased five times from the preceding year’s P449 million to P2.692 billion.

Sun Cellular has committed to investing $ 200 million in additional network infrastructure every year. For 2007, Sun put up 16 percent additional cell sites in the National Capital Region (NCR), 75 percent more sites in Luzon and 61 percent in Visayas and Mindanao. Over 400 cities and municipalities currently have enhanced coverage.

This year, Digitel intends to put in additional cell sites to improve its coverage and capacity nationwide.

But in contrast to the gains the telco made in its wireless business, Digitel’s wireline voice communication service revenues declined from P4.459 billion to P3.895 billion due to the advent of new technology, decreasing rates and continued appreciation of the peso against the dollar.

Despite the challenges, Digitel’s wireline voice communication services managed to arrest the decline in revenues with the continued growth of Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) and wireless telephone with broadband services, known as MANGO, which posted 67.2 percent growth in 2007.

MANGO, the telco’s wireless landline service, has already penetrated strategic strongholds in Luzon, outside of Metro Manila, and in Quezon City, positioning itself as a second landline phone service.

Call centers and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies’ demand for high bandwidth data and transport services enabled Digitel’s wireline data communication service revenues to grow 26 percent from P78.5 million to P381 million.