MONTREAL – BCE Inc. today announced its second quarter 2022 results, showing operating revenues totaled $5.9 billion, an increase of 2.9% compared to the same quarter in 2021.
The increase was attributed to higher service revenue of $5.2 billion, a 3.8% increase, “driven by strong wireless, residential Internet and media growth,” a press release says.
Product revenue meanwhile “was down 4.6% to $628 million, largely reflecting lower year-over-year business wireline data equipment sales,” the release says.
Adjusted EBITDA was reported to have increased 4.6% to $2.6 billion.
“Bell’s Q2 financial results continued to demonstrate our disciplined focus on profitable customer growth and effective management of challenging global macroeconomic conditions, as evidenced by another quarter of healthy consolidated revenue, adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow growth that remain in line with our financial guidance targets for 2022, supporting sustainable value creation for all stakeholders,” said Glen LeBlanc, BCE and Bell Canada’s chief financial officer, in the press release.
Bell Media reported operating revenue increased 8.7% year-over-year to $821 million. This was “driven by the return of the F1 Canadian Grand Prix, continued strong digital media growth, advertising increases across Bell Media’s specialty TV sports and news services, stronger radio and out of home advertiser demand as the COVID recovery continues, and higher subscriber revenue from Crave streaming subscriber growth,” the press release says.
“Digital revenue grew 55%, the result of strong Crave direct-to-consumer growth and continued rapid scaling of our strategic audience management (SAM) TV media sales tool.”
Adjusted EBITA for Bell Media was up 5.6% to $266 million.
In Bell’s wireless segment, operating revenue was reported to be $2.2 billion – an increase of 5.5% compared to the same quarter in 2021. Service revenue in the segment increased 7.8% to $1.7 billion and product revenue decreased by 0.9% to $543 million. Adjusted EBITDA for Bell’s wireless segment was reported to be to $1.1 billion – an increase of 8.3% compared to the same quarter in 2021.
Bell reported 83,197 postpaid mobile phone net subscriber activations (compared to 44,433 in Q2 2021) and 27,564 prepaid mobile phone net subscriber activations (compared to 1,814 in the same quarter the previous year). Along with this, Bell reported its “best-ever quarterly postpaid churn rate of 0.75%,” according to the press release.
The company’s total mobile phone customer base at the end of Q2 2022 had increased 4.2% to 9.6 million compared to last year. This includes 8.7 million postpaid subscribers and 854,650 prepaid customers.
Blended mobile ARPU increased 3.8% to $59.54. This was “driven by increased roaming revenue consistent with the return of international travel as COVID restrictions eased, and our continued focus on higher-value subscriber loadings across all our postpaid and prepaid brands,” the press release explains.
In Bell’s wireline segment, operating revenue was reported to have decreased 0.3% to $3 billion compared to the same quarter in 2021. Service revenue for the segment increased 0.6% to $2.9 billion and product revenue decreased $23.2% to $86 million. Bell’s wireline adjusted EBITDA increased 1.7% to $1.3 billion.
The company reported 22,620 net new retail Internet subscribers, an increase of 27.9% from Q2 2021 and 3,838 net new retail IPTV subscribers down from 4,540 in the same quarter of 2021.
Bell had a total of 4 million retail Internet subscribers at the end of the quarter, a 6.1% from last year and 1.9 million retail IPTV subscribers up 4.7% from last year. Retail satellite TV net subscriber losses were reported to be 15,365, an increase from 9,468 in Q2 2021.
“These excellent results are a testament to the significant and unprecedented investments we’re making in network connectivity, reliability, and our fibre footprint expansion,” said BCE and Bell Canada president and CEO Mirko Bibic.
“In addition, our continued investments in customer experience and digital support options are encouraging customers to stay with Bell, as reflected in a third consecutive quarter of improved churn for our wireless, residential Internet and Fibe TV services.”
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