By Ahmad Hathout
MONTREAL – In a somewhat unusual move when it comes to a conference call with financial analysts, but perhaps not for one of two of Montreal’s perennial corporate rivals, Quebecor’s president Pierre Karl Péladeau thumbed his nose directly at Bell Canada over his company’s wireless performance in the first quarter of 2020.
“It is worth noting that our wireless subscriber growth, at over 39,000 new lines this quarter, is almost twice that of Bell even though they have a national footprint and we are only in Quebec,” Péladeau said Thursday during his company’s quarterly conference call. Mentioning a competitor by name is almost verboten when it comes to these calls.
The company reported a 3% increase in the number of new postpaid subscribers over the year, versus the 23,650 Bell added in the quarter that ended on March 31. Quebecor’s total wireless subscriber base sat at 1,369,800, up from 1,193,600 in the same quarter last year.
Péladeau also suggested during the call his company is in a better financial position than Bell to pay down its debts.
The two companies are engaged in a number of legal and regulatory battles, for example, Quebecor recently reserved with the Federal Court of Appeal its right to challenge the CRTC’s decision to bless Bell’s acquisition of the V network, a Quebec TV market rival to Quebecor’s TVA.
The company’s press release also noted the latter part of the quarter affected by the Covid-19 crisis saw one piece of good news – a 50% reduction in churn, something which other carriers also reported this quarter. New connections also dipped 50%, too in March.
“In terms of how does it look like today, with respect to wireline services, it looks much better than [previous] Q1 because of the slowdown in connection activity and churn activity,” Jean-François Pruneau, president and CEO of Videotron, said on the call, alluding to wireline losses – largely on TV – with greater market activity. “On the other end, it’s the opposite for wireless… this slowdown of activity has impacted us since mid-March and continued in April.
“That being said, we’re still growing [over last year]… and the fact of the matter is we estimate that, from mid-March through end of April, the market activity [saw] 30 to 45% of normal activity in terms of switchers going from one operator to the other. We’re now up to about 65% of normal activity,” said Pruneau.
However, “since we capture more than our peers, and even more since the beginning of the crisis in terms of share of gross adds, well last week and the week before our results on wireless services were on top of last year and even better this week. So it looks like, at least at our end, things are getting to some kind of a normal,” he added.
“Will we catch up on the gap that was created from April 1 to April 30? I hope so,” Pruneau continued. Otherwise, “we’re getting on track with our normal performance with wireless.”
Videotron increased its Internet subscriber base by 8,600, or 0.5%, in the quarter for a total of 1,735,900 compared to 1,674,100 last year, while it lost home telephone subscribers compared to last year and sits on a base of about 1 million.
Since mid-March, the company had also stopped its migration to its new Helix IPTV platform, which has been a shining star for the company since its market entrance last summer. The company lost TV subscribers for a total base of 1,512,100 versus 1,606,000 last year, but saw a net gain of 12,400 subscribers to its Club illico over-the-top service for a total of 471,700 subscribers.
Quebecor reported a decrease in its wireline business segment because a chunk of its client base are bars, restaurants and hotels, most of which had to suspend services due to the Covid-19 pandemic
The company increased its overall revenues by 2.7%, or $28.2 million, to $1.06 billion versus the same period last year, while its net income was $131.6 million compared to $189 million last year.
For the full results, please click here.
