MONTREAL – BCE ended its first quarter of 2013 with strong revenues and profits, driven by growth in wireless, TV, Internet, media and business services such as data hosting and cloud computing.
Net profit increased by 6.6% to $566 million, with an 11.6% increase in earnings per share to $0.77, compared to the first quarter of 2012. Bell’s operating revenues increased 0.3% to $4.34 billion, driven by an increase in service revenues of 1.3%. Bell EBITDA increased 2.1% to $1.64 billion, driven by strong EBITDA growth of 11.6% at Bell Wireless and 21.0% at Bell Media, moderated by a 4.5% decline at Bell Wireline.
“Industry-leading investment in next-generation networks and services continues to drive Bell’s transformation," said BCE and Bell president and CEO George Cope in a release. “Our operating mix is increasingly dominated by wireless, TV, media and Internet growth services, now representing more than 80% of Bell’s revenue.”
Bell wireless operating revenues increased 6.3% from $1.33 billion in Q1 2012 to $1.4 billion in Q1 2013. Service revenues grew 7.2% to $1.3 billion due to a larger smartphone base and higher blended average revenue per user (ARPU). Postpaid net additions of 59,497 in Q1 2013 were supported by higher year-over-year postpaid gross activations and lower customer churn. Bell reported that postpaid gross activations increased to 295,136 in Q1 from 293,572 last year
Smartphone users represented 68% of total postpaid subscribers at the end of the first quarter, compared to 52% a year earlier. Bell Wireless customers totaled 7,672,075 at the end of the quarter, an increase of 3.6%.
Postpaid customer churn improved to 1.25% from 1.35% in Q1 2012, which Bell attributes to investments in customer service and retention and lower deactivation rates on smartphones compared to other devices. Prepaid churn also improved 16 basis points to 3.79% this quarter.
In its wireline business, Bell Fibe TV added 47,463 net new customers in the first quarter, a 41.9% increase over the 33,443 gained in the first quarter of 2012. At the end of Q1, Bell Fibe TV subscribers totalled 295,761, up 147% over last year.
Combined Bell Satellite TV and Fibe TV net additions decreased to 13,971 this quarter, due to lower year-over-year satellite TV net activations attributable to aggressive offers from TV competitors, said the release. Bell TV's subscriber base totalled 2,169,954 at the end of Q1 2013, a year-over-year increase of 2.8%.
Wireline data revenue was up 0.8% to $1.4 billion on data service revenue growth of 3.2%. The higher revenue was fuelled by Fibe TV and Internet subscriber growth, and higher IP broadband connectivity and data hosting revenues at Bell Business Markets.
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