WINNIPEG – Canada’s third-largest telco, Manitoba Telecom Services Inc, (MTS) reported a 33% drop in second-quarter profit after losing 4,000 residential-phone customers last quarter and additional expenses, including the recent wireless spectrum acquisition. This despite strong gains in its high-speed Internet, wireless and digital TV business.
Net income fell to $38 million, from $57 million, a year earlier, whiles second-quarter sales rose 2.6% to $486.4 million, compared with the $484.2 million compared to the previous year. MTS’s cell phone subscribers accounted for $71.9-million in the quarter, up six per cent, with the average revenue per subscriber dipping two per cent to $56.46. Total wireless subscribers reached more than 408,000 subscribers.
The company says it is boosting mobile-phone services and high- speed Internet access to make up for the loss of traditional phone customers. MTS also faces increasing competition with cable-television providers, which are offering digital phone services over their lines.
"MTS continued to deliver profitable growth during the second quarter," says CEO, Pierre Blouin. "These results were driven primarily by double-digit growth in growth services and the continued strong performance of both our consumer markets division and the enterprise solutions division, which delivered its third consecutive quarter of overall revenue growth."
"We are well-positioned to achieve our growth targets for 2008, while continuing to provide an attractive dividend yield to our shareholders,” he added.
