MONTREAL – Quebecor disclosed its 2019 third quarter results on Thursday, where its wireless service remains the company’s knight in shining armour.
Overall, Quebecor reported revenues of $1.07 billion for the period ended September 30, 2019, a 1.9% increase over Q3 2018 results. Revenue in the telecom segment was strong, growing 3% to $877 million. The company’s adjusted EBITDA was $509.3 million, a 7.4% year-over-year increase.
The company’s net income attributable to shareholders was $178.5 million, a decrease from the $187.1 million for the same period the year prior. However, the company’s adjusted income from continuing operating activities saw a significant increase of $32.3 million to $173.8 million, compared to Q3 2018 results.
“I’m very happy to report a successful quarter across all our operations, propelled by the continued momentum of our telecom operations,” said Quebecor president and CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau, in the press release.
A breakdown of the company’s results reveals that Videotron added 56,800 wireless customers to its books this past quarter, a 36.8% increase over the same time period last year, resulting in a $17.4 million (12.6%) increase in revenue on the wireless side. Over the last 12 months, Péladeau noted Videotron has added 168,000 wireless customers, setting a record for most additions since first launching its wireless service almost 10 years ago. Péladeau said Fizz, the company’s discount wireless service, accounted for 30% of total growth adds during the quarter.
Despite the uptick in revenue, and a churn rate of 1.3%, mobile ABPU (average billing per user) was down 1.8% to $53.28, which the company attributed to the popularity of its BYOD (bring your own device) plans.
On the home internet front, despite a 2.7% year-over-year increase in revenue, Videotron reported growth in cable internet installs were down approximately 38% for the quarter. The company added 17,400 broadband subscribers. Club Illico, the company’s OTT video service, added 12,500 new subscriptions. Videotron’s traditional cable TV division shed 13,200 customers during the quarter, while 20,000 cable telephony accounts were disconnected.
Péladeau however noted with just five weeks of customer availability during the third quarter, the company’s IPTV service, Helix, which is based on Comcast’s Xfinity X1 platform, boasted more than 30,000 subs already. He said the company is working hard to meet the growing demand for the product.
“Overall, our broadband and TV subscriber performance for the quarter were somewhat impacted by our installation backlog for Helix,” said Videotron president and CEO Jean-François Pruneau. “In order to ensure a robust launch [for Helix], we purposely limited our installation capacity for the first four weeks, resulting in a backlog of more than 10,000 scheduled installations as of the end of the quarter.”
According to Pruneau, Videotron anticipates eliminating the Helix TV installation backlog by the end of the year.
