MONTREAL – Bell Canada reported a higher third quarter profit Wednesday as a result of overall revenue improvements spurred by a record quarter in wireless activations as well as cost reductions.
With work continuing towards completion of the privatization deal with the consortium led by Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, BCE reported net earnings of $440 million (CDN), or 50 cents a share, up from $302 million, or 36 cents a year for the same period a year ago.
“Bell continued to make progress on two fronts this quarter, moving towards the completion of the privatization transaction and delivering steadily improving results,” said Michael Sabia, Chief Executive Officer of Bell Canada. “With respect to the privatization of the company…we continue to expect the closing of this transaction in the first quarter of 2008.”
“In addition, we continued to make operating progress with a record Q3 for wireless gross activations, improving revenue growth and continued steady growth in EBITDA and earnings,” Mr. Sabia said. “We also continued to deliver on our cost savings targets and to step up our efforts to move away from low margin equipment sales.”
The Bell wireless segment had its best-ever third quarter with 445,000 gross activations, or 15.6% more than last year; net activations were 137,000, or 7.0% higher than last year. The wireless client base reached 6,021,000.
“In our wireline business, as expected, legacy local and long distance service revenues declined at a slower pace than last year as our business units continue to focus on profitability and our year-to-date NAS losses are relatively stable,” said George Cope, President and Chief Operating Officer of Bell Canada.
Long distance revenues declined by 8.4% to $306 million this quarter, an improvement over the 13.2% decline experienced in Q3 2006.
Bell also reported that high-speed Internet subscribers grew by 8.0% compared to last year with 34,000 net activations in the quarter, and total video subscribers increased by 1.8% compared to last year to reach 1,820,000.
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