VANCOUVER – Telus announced its second quarter results today, which includes a 9.5% increase in adjusted EBITDA over the same period in 2020, to $1.5 billion.
The company further reported consolidated operating revenues and other income increased to $4.1 billion – a 10% increase from the same period last year, according to a news release. Telus had 223,000 customer net additions, which is up 82,000 over last year, and 89,000 mobile phone net additions, representing an increase of 28,000 over last year.
“We’re obviously very proud of the quarter,” said Jim Senko, president of mobility solutions at Telus, in an interview with Cartt.ca. “We achieved both strong financial results [and] really great operational results with strong high quality customer growth.”
Moving forward, Telus is working on bringing 5G to more Canadians. With the auction for 3500 MHz spectrum now closed and the results released, Telus is looking towards putting the spectrum it acquired to use.
“We were successful acquiring the spectrum that we needed and this mid band spectrum is critical for our long-term growth,” Senko said.
Access to Telus’s 5G network will be limited to the company’s premium brand and will not be offered on Koodo or Public Mobile. “One of the main reasons for that is we feel for customers to really get the benefits of 5G, they need to be on the unlimited plans and we’re only going to provide unlimited plans in our premium brands.”
Uses for 5G will vary. From a consumer perspective, “new services like over the top content gaming services, all of those kinds of things will start to become more normal on mobile,” Senko said. You could be in a park watching video without worrying about it because you have an unlimited plan, and if you want to do some work on the train while going back to the office, or join a virtual meeting, it just works better on 5G, he explained.
The conclusion of the spectrum auction does not just mean more Canadians will have access to 5G in the near future – the results, along with the impending Shaw-Rogers merger, regardless of the final outcome of the deal, signal potential changes in the competitive market in western Canada. Telus is unconcerned about what this will mean for the company. “At the end of the day, you’re really looking at some evolution of Shaw Mobile and Videotron in Quebec, and we’ve been successful in both and against both,” Senko said. “So, bring it on and we’re going to do great again. I think we’re set up really well to compete with them.”
A central concern Telus does have right now is the high cost of the 3500 MHz spectrum in Canada.“Canadian national carriers paid the highest price globally for the 3500 spectrum. We paid 2.7 times more than U.S. operators and even higher than that versus what South Korea, Australia, United Kingdom, Germany and Italy paid. And so, to truly benefit Canadians and accelerate the government’s innovation and affordability agendas… we need to keep working with them on fair and balanced access to this national asset, so that we can continue to build these great networks,” Senko said.
