MONTREAL – Cogeco Inc.’s third quarter revenue increased 16.3% year-over-year to $754.8 million, according to the company’s financial results for the quarter ended May 31, 2022, announced yesterday.
On a constant currency basis, the company saw an increase in revenue of 14.9%.
“American broadband services revenue increased by 31.7% in constant currency, mostly resulting from the Ohio broadband systems acquisition completed on September 1, 2021 and organic revenue growth driven by a higher Internet service customer base, higher value product mix and annual rate increases implemented for certain services,” a press release explains.
“Canadian broadband services revenue increased by 2.5% mainly as a result of last year’s reduction in revenue of $4.6 million due to the retroactive impact of the CRTC’s decision on wholesale high-speed Internet access services and organic revenue growth.”
In media, revenue increased 6.8% in Q3 2022 compared to Q3 2021. This was “mainly following the easing of public health restrictions, whereby last year’s third quarter radio advertising revenue was directly impacted by COVID-19 related lockdown measures,” the release explains.
Cogeco reported adjusted EBITDA was $353.5 million in Q3 2022, an increase of 16.9% from the same quarter the previous year.
Adjusted EBITDA for the company’s American broadband services increased 33.3% in constant currency and for its Canadian broadband services, it increased 3.9%.
The company’s press release notes that while pandemic-related restrictions have eased, there are challenges with rising inflation and scarcity and longer delivery lead times for certain products. “While we are proactively working at minimizing the impact on the Corporation, we expect the combination of those elements to put pressure on revenue, as some customers seek ways to reduce their monthly spending, and on the costs to deliver our services,” says the release.
“Our performance for the third quarter of fiscal 2022 was in line with our expectations, despite the increasingly challenging economic context,” said Philippe Jetté, president and CEO of Cogeco Inc., in the release.
“Our Canadian broadband services business unit, Cogeco Connexion, performed well during the quarter. The financial and operational performance was in line with expectations, while the number of customer additions reflected slower activity in the industry. We are also actively building new networks in collaboration with governments and a growing number of homes are being connected and offered Cogeco’s services,” he said.
“Cogeco Media, our radio business, has continued to shine in the ratings, while the team finds innovative ways to overcome the challenges of the traditional advertising market, including progressively redefining our radio stations as multiplatform audio content providers.”
On a conference call with investors this morning, Jetté was asked about Cogeco’s potential participation in the upcoming 3800 MHz spectrum auction, but told investors in response the important development to pay attention to right now is the CRTC’s decision regarding MVNO terms and conditions, which we are still awaiting.
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