MONTREAL – Profits more than doubled while revenue shot up by more than 12% during the second quarter at Cogeco Inc.
The Montreal-based company said Thursday that profits for the quarter ended February 29, 2012 reached $81.5 million, up from $22.4 million in the same period last year, which it attributed to gain on the sale of Portuguese subsidiary Cabovisao, which was partly offset by the increase of depreciation and amortization expense due to the reduction of depreciation period for certain property, plant and equipment.
Consolidated revenue increased by 12.4% to $345.6 million primarily due to gains in its cable sector. Cable revenue grew 8.3% from $293.4 million to $317.7 million, while revenue from radio and advertising representation house activities improved by $13.8 million this quarter.
Primary service units, which represent the sum of television, high speed Internet and telephony service customers, grew by 12,280 net additions in the quarter to a total of 1,955,928. The company said that PSU net additions were lower than in the comparable period of the prior year mainly as a result of category maturity, competitive offers and tightening of its credit controls and processes.
Cogeco Cable ended the quarter with 873,326 basic cable customers (including 752,642 digital subscribers), 626,017 Internet customers, and 456,585 telephony customers.
