PLDT has completed the acquisition of the remaining 65.1% stake in fibre operator Radius Telecoms, turning the company into a wholly owned subsidiary of the Philippine telecoms group and consolidating its hold on one of the larger end-to-end fibre footprints in the country.

The seller was electric distribution utility Meralco, which previously held the controlling position in Radius. The deal closes a ownership structure that had left Radius as a Meralco subsidiary, and hands PLDT full control of an operator whose full fibre optic network runs end-to-end across more than 11,000 kilometres.

What does the fibre footprint cover?

Radius delivers services over its fibre network across Mega Manila and nearby provinces. The footprint also extends into Clark in Central Luzon and Cebu in the Central Visayas region.

Those coverage areas matter commercially. Mega Manila and its surrounding provinces represent the densest concentration of fixed-broadband demand in the Philippines, while Cebu is the commercial centre of the Central Visayas. Full ownership of an 11,000-kilometre end-to-end fibre asset in those markets strengthens PLDT's position in the country's telecommunications and connectivity sector — the stated rationale for the transaction.

PLDT did not disclose the financial terms of the buyout in the announcement. What is clear is the structural outcome: a fibre operator that previously sat partly outside the group now reports entirely within it, giving PLDT direct control over network planning and commercial strategy across the Radius footprint.

What is happening on the loyalty side?

The acquisition was not the only move PLDT made. The operator and its wireless subsidiary Smart Communications have partnered with loyalty management platform Capillary Technologies to transform and unify their loyalty ecosystem across mobile, broadband and partner engagement platforms.

Under the partnership, Capillary will power a next-generation loyalty platform that brings together three programmes into a single ecosystem:

• PLDT Home, the fixed-broadband arm's customer programme
• Smart, the wireless brand's loyalty environment
• Ka-Partner, the group's partner engagement programme

The companies position the consolidation as a significant step in PLDT and Smart's customer engagement strategy. The stated goal is to replace multiple separate loyalty environments with what the partners describe as a more intelligent and scalable platform.

How much of this is marketing language?

The announcement carries its share of vendor-adjacent claims. PLDT, Smart and Capillary say the unified platform will be powered by artificial intelligence, advanced personalisation and real-time engagement capabilities, and will deliver more personalised and rewarding experiences across millions of customers.

Those capabilities are, for now, forward-looking descriptions rather than deployed features. The verifiable commercial facts are narrower: a signed partnership, a defined scope covering the three named loyalty programmes, and a stated intention to consolidate them.

What is the rollout timeline?

The companies have committed to a phased implementation approach over the next year. That timeline covers the migration of the PLDT Home, Smart and Ka-Partner programmes onto the unified Capillary-powered platform.

For PLDT, the coming year therefore pairs an integration project on the customer-engagement side with an absorption exercise on the infrastructure side, as Radius — now a wholly owned subsidiary — is folded fully into the group's fibre operations across its more than 11,000-kilometre network.