REGINA – SaskTel reported 2016/17 net income of $134.8 million from operating revenues of $1.277 billion.
The provincial Crown Corp said Wednesday that revenues grew 1.0% ($12.4 million), mainly due to increases in wireless, maxTV, Internet, data and managed and emerging revenues. Net income, up $28.9 million from the same period in 2015/16, increased due to a 1.0% growth in revenue and a 0.7% decline in operating expenses.
Strong cost management coupled with revenue growth in key business segments, including wireless, maxTV, Internet, data, and new and emerging products and services, resulted in SaskTel exceeding its net income budget by $30.6 million.
“Implementing state-of-the-art converged, intelligent communications networks is the foundation of SaskTel’s future success,” said acting president and CEO Doug Burnett, in the report. “Over the past year, SaskTel has kept its promise to deliver over $300 million in capital spending here in Saskatchewan and now boasts the largest owner-operated LTE network in the province.”
Other highlights from the report comparing the twelve-month period ending December 31, 2016, with the twelve-month period ending December 31, 2015 include:
– Wireless revenues increased by 5.0% ($24.7 million) from 2015/16. A large portion of this increase relates to the renegotiation of a wholesale contract with other carriers;
– Year-over-year, smartphone penetration has increased by 3.0% which has contributed to increased ARPU. ARPU growth is attributable to customers migrating to price plans that offer more data and features;
– maxTV, Internet, and data services revenue increased by 3.4% ($11.0 million). In 2016/17, more customers are selecting faster Internet speeds to meet their increasing data demands;
– Local access and enhanced services declined by 7.3% ($16.8 million) from 2015/16. This decline is due to a 6.4% reduction in network accesses (2015/16 – 7.4%). Customers continue to replace their existing wireline services with a wireless alternative, a trend that SaskTel expects to continue;
– Long distance revenues have decreased 9.9% ($4.6 million) from 2015/16, primarily due to loss of customers to substitute services such as social media, wireless and VoIP, as well as customers moving to less expensive bundle plans;
– SaskTel invested an additional $316.1 million in capital expenditures during 2016/17 (2015/16 – $328.7 million) to improve customers’ experience today and create opportunities to provide additional network enhancements and capabilities in the future. Of the $316.1 million, $259.3 million (2015/16 – $258.1 million) was spent on property, plant and equipment, including FTTP, wireless networks (4G, LTE, and Wi-Fi), and Access Demand, while the remaining $56.8 million (2015/16 – $70.6 million) was spent on intangible assets such as customer support systems.
SaskTel added that it has approximately 1.4 million customer connections including 616,000 wireless accesses, 388,000 wireline network accesses, 275,000 Internet accesses and 110,000 maxTV subscribers.
The full financial report is available here.
