VANCOUVER – Telus today reported Q2 revenue of $2.55 billion, an increase of 6.4% over the same quarter last year. This increase was generated by nearly 10% growth in wireless revenue and 3% in wireline revenue, both driven by strong data growth.
Analysts were expecting overall revenue of about $2.52 billion.
The company says it added 94,000 new wireless subscribers in the quarter, and that wireless data revenue surged 49% on accelerating smartphone adoption which more than offset declining voice revenues. This produced a wireless average revenue per unit (ARPU) growth of 2.5%. Telus says this is the third consecutive quarter of year-over-year ARPU growth.
"Telus’ strong second quarter results were clearly evidenced by the healthy operating metrics we generated across our broadband wireless and wireline businesses,” said Darren Entwistle, Telus president and CEO, in the press release.
“Robust wireless postpaid customer additions of 92,000 reflected a record level of smartphone sales. Notably, Telus’ smartphone penetration within our postpaid base is at 42 per cent and growing, driving wireless data revenue growth of 49 per cent and higher average revenue per client, coupled with superior loyalty and retention."
Entwistle added that Telus’ broadband wireline business demonstrated strong operational performance with data revenue expanding by 14% in this quarter.
“This growth is supported by solid Telus TV and high speed Internet customer additions of 59,000 on a combined basis, up 84% year over year. Importantly, Telus’ TV client base surpassed 400,000 customers this quarter while our voice business yielded the lowest level of consumer line losses in five years."
In its wireline segment, the company added 46,000 TV customers to surpass the 400,000 subscriber milestone. Combined with 13,000 new high-speed Internet subscribers this performance helped generate wireline data revenue growth of 14%.
Consolidated second quarter earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of $950 million increased by almost 3% due to revenue growth. This was offset in part by higher costs to acquire and retain wireless customers and to support Optik TV growth.
Aided by reduced financing costs, Telus reported net income and earnings per share (EPS) for the second quarter were $324 million and $0.99, representing year-over-year increases of 7.3 and 5.3 per cent, respectively.
Telus has revised its financial guidance for the year, and now forecasts revenue of $10.22-$10.42 billion, up from its previous guidance for $9.92-$10.22 billion this year. Planned capital spending has increased by $100 million to about $1.8 billion. Its projections for EBITDA of $3.67-C$3.87 billion are unchanged.
The company also said it has named former federal government minister Stockwell Day to its board.
