CALGARY – Third quarter profits at Shaw Communications were up 28% on revenues that cracked the $1 billion threshold, the company reported Wednesday. But it offered no glimpse into the future of its wireless plans beyond what CEO Brad Shaw told Cartt.ca last week.
Consolidated revenue for the quarter ended May 31, 2011 were $1.28 billion, a 36% increase over $943 million in the same period last year, while net profits grew 28% year-over-year to $202.7 million from $158.2 million. Shaw credited the improvement to its acquisition of Shaw Media, as well as rate increases and growth in its cable and satellite divisions.
Revenue at Shaw Cable was up 5% to $784.7 million, driven by rate increases and customer growth in digital phone and Internet, partially offset by higher promotional activity and lower basic subscribers.
Basic cable subscribers dropped by 13,577 this quarter, while digital customers increased by 19,202 to reach 1,767,740. Digital phone lines increased by 31,404 during the three month period to 1,210,064 lines, while Internet customers increased by 11,165 to 1,859,555 at quarter end.
Over at its satellite division, revenue was $209.7 million for the quarter, a modest 3% increase from this time last year. Shaw Direct added 1,644 customers to end the quarter with a total of 908,077 DTH customers.
Revenue at the Shaw Media division for the third quarter was $312.1 million, and operating income before amortization was $117.4 million.
CEO Shaw said that the company’s strategy continues to drive it forward and serve its stakeholders well.
"Our third quarter financial results reflect a marked improvement over the second quarter and include a partial quarter of cost savings that resulted from the actions we undertook to streamline our organizational structure”, CEO Shaw said in a statement. (Ed note: Shaw eliminated approximately 550 employee positions this quarter, including 150 at the management level.)
Shaw offered no new insight on the company’s efforts to launch a wireless service in Western Canada after pulling back on those plans earlier this year, however the industry is heavy with speculation that the company will team up with Rogers Communications to build a national LTE network.
