HALIFAX – Earnings at Bell Aliant fell sharply as the company continues to focus on expanding its fibre-to-the-home network known as FibreOp.
Net earnings for the three months ended March 31 2011, were $84.1 million, a significant decrease from $301.3 million in the prior-year period, while EBITDA dropped from $339 million to $329 million as a result of lower revenues and the increase in pension current service costs. Operating revenue was $682 million, down from $689 million as growth in Internet and TV revenues was more than offset by declines in local and long distance revenues.
President and CEO Karen Sheriff described the company’s first quarter as “a very strong start to what will be a year of high execution for us”.
“Our first quarter results show that the focused execution of our strategic initiatives has us on the right path,” she said in a statement. “With our accelerated expansion of fibre-to-the-home, our net NAS declines continue to improve and our Internet and TV revenues are growing such that our Atlantic residential revenues have returned to positive growth after a period of decline.”
Net NAS declines were 33,000 in the first quarter of 2011, down from 39,000 in the same quarter in 2010, due to strong bundling performance and retention programs, bolstered by the expansion of FibreOP Internet and TV service coverage in Atlantic Canada.
After passing an incremental 40,000 homes and business with FibreOP services in the first quarter, the company credited that with driving 4,400 new IPTV customers. The regional telco ended the quarter with 54,000 TV customers, or approximately 14% penetration. High-speed Internet customers grew by 3.8% from the same period a year earlier.
Click here for more on Bell Aliant’s Q1 results.
