MONTREAL – Canada’s largest communications company reported a 70% jump in second quarter earnings.
Chief executive George Cope also confirmed reports that Bell’s wireless division will relaunch its discount service Solo Mobile later this month in a move designed to guard share against Rogers’ new Chatr brand. On the TV front, Cope said that Bell will add IPTV as part of its bundle of services in the Montreal and Toronto markets either late this year or in early 2011.
BCE posted net earnings of $590 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2010, compared with $346 million in the same period last year, while EBITDA increased by 2.1% to $1.83 million.
Bell saw a 4.5% increase in revenue growth to $3,792 million, as higher revenues from growth in TV and wireless revenues and the acquisitions of The Source and the remaining 50% of the equity of Virgin not already owned by Bell more than offset declines in local and access, long distance and wireline data revenues.
Bell TV subscribers increased by 9,775 this quarter compared to an increase of 20,018 in the same period last year. At the end of the quarter, the company had 1,978,541 TV subscribers, or 5.0% more than at the end of Q2 2009. High-speed Internet subscribers decreased by 3,899 this quarter compared to an increase of 1,991 last year. At the end of the quarter, Bell had 2,063,559 high-speed Internet subscribers.
Bell Wireless operating revenues increased by 9.6% this quarter with service revenues increasing by 10.8% and product revenues decreasing by 4.5%. Gross activations of 480,639 and postpaid net activations of 102,754 were 19.0% and 60.1% higher than last year, respectively. The Bell Wireless client base reached 6,987,386 at the end of the quarter, an increase of 6.3% compared to last year.
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