MONTREAL – Revenue may have been flat for the first quarter (up just 1%) but overall EBITDA, as well as good wireless results, drove BCE Inc., the parent company of Bell Canada, to a solid first quarter of 2011.
Total EBITDA grew 6.4% while wireless operating revenues rose 9.2%, wireless EBITDA increased 12.2% and EBITDA margins increase to over 40%
Wireless postpaid net additions in the quarter ended March 31st were 80,648 and smartphones represented 55% of gross postpaid activations. Blended wireless ARPU (average revenue per subscription) increased by $1.61 to $51.68, reflecting strong data revenue growth of 38% driven by accelerating smartphone adoption and usage.
Bell Wireline EBITDA growth was 4%, driven by cost control (which included about 200 job cuts in the quarter); Fibe TV and Fibe Internet also gained further traction.
"Bell delivered market-leading performance in wireless, strong revenue growth in wireline Internet and TV services, and exceptional EBITDA growth – the highest in the industry and Bell’s best EBITDA growth rate in more than eight years." said George Cope, president and CEO of Bell Canada and BCE, in the company’s press release.
"These results underscore the Bell team’s continued strong execution of our five strategic imperatives, leveraging our broadband network investments with leading TV, Internet and mobile smartphone services while ensuring rigorous and ongoing cost management – including a $90 million reduction in wireline operating costs year over year."
And thanks to the quick closure of the Bell Media acquisition, “we’ve quickly leveraged these superior content assets with enhanced Bell Mobile TV and Bell TV Online programming and the launch of TSN Radio," said Cope, who noted in the conference call with analysts the company has been signing on mobile video users at the rate of 2,000 per week (who are paying a few dollars a month for the privilege).
Bell Wireline also achieved strong EBITDA growth and increased ARPU across its portfolio of TV, Internet and Home phone residential services, as growing traction of both Fibe TV (now available to more than 800,000 households in Toronto and Montreal) and Fibe Internet drove increased triple-play household penetration. Bell Wireline also reduced its residential network access services (NAS) line loss trajectory and increased business NAS lines by 5,044, which contributed to the slowing of voice revenue erosion.
The company invested $515 million of capital this quarter, or 16.8% more than the same period last year, due mainly to the deployment of broadband fibre to residential homes and businesses in Ontario and Québec, ongoing enhancement of our wireline broadband network to support the commercial roll-out of Bell Fibe TV, network capacity growth to accommodate increasing Internet and wireless data consumption, increased investment in customer service to improve client care support systems and self-serve tools, and the construction of data hosting centres.
