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Bell has record Q4: 523,000 new subscribers (11.3% increase)
In 2009 Bell was certainly busy… they purchased all The Source retail locations, swallowed up Virgin Mobile Canada and launched their HSPA network. Today, Bell has reported their Q4 2009 results and an outlook for 2010… and as President and CEO George Cope said “The Bell team’s strong execution of our service-focused strategy and ongoing cost discipline across our business delivered strong Q4 results and enabled us to meet or beat all of our increased financial targets for 2009″. I guess today finally did get better!
That is fantastic news for shareholders – especially in this so-called downturn economy. In their report Bell stated they had a “record Q4 wireless gross subscriber activations” with 523,000 new subscribers, which represents an 11.3% increase over last year. Bell states the reason for the dramatic results is their new HSPA handset lineup that includes the Apple iPhone, RIM Blackberry Bold and wireless Internet sticks. Other activation stats are: Total net activations increased 39.3% to 163,000, Postpaid net activations increased 37.5% to 110,000 and prepaid net activations increased by 43.2% to 53,000.
If these results are not good enough for you. How about this: Bell now has increased their customer base to 6,833,000 – a staggering increase of 5.2% over last year. Here’s a summary that I pulled from the Q4 report:
- Total Bell Wireless operating revenues increased by 5.7% to $1,198 million this quarter. Service revenues increased by 2.1% to $1,055 million due to the acquisition of the remaining 50% of Virgin and higher wireless data revenues, partly offset by the impact of lower ARPU. Product revenues increased by 43.3% to $129 million due to the acquisition of The Source and the remaining 50% of Virgin, as well the impact of the launch of the new HSPA network. For the full year, total Bell Wireless operating revenues increased by 1.8% to $4,558 million with service revenues increasing by 1.1% to $4,102 million and product revenues increasing by 8.0% to $405 million.
- The acquisition of the remaining 50% of Virgin was completed on July 1, 2009. Accordingly, beginning in Q3 2009, wireless ARPU, churn and cost of acquisition reflect 100% of Virgin’s results. For prior periods, these metrics have been reported on a pro forma basis to reflect 100% of Virgin’s results.
- On a pro forma basis, postpaid ARPU decreased by $3.00 to $62.47 due to customer migration to lower rate plans, lower usage and lower roaming revenues as customers reacted to a weaker economy, while prepaid ARPU increased by $1.12 to $18.45 due to the growth of Virgin’s higher ARPU subscriber base. Blended ARPU decreased by $1.48 to $51.08. For the full year, blended ARPU decreased by $1.82 to $50.88, postpaid ARPU decreased by $3.21 to $62.81 and prepaid ARPU decreased by $0.30 to $17.53.
- Bell Wireless operating income decreased by 0.7% to $292 million this quarter as a result of lower EBITDA partly offset by lower restructuring and other costs. For the full year, Bell Wireless operating income increased by 3.5% to $1,284 million. Bell Wireless EBITDA decreased by 2.0% to $435 million this quarter due to higher subscriber acquisition costs associated with Q4 record gross activations. For the full year, Bell Wireless EBITDA increased by 2.4% to $1,812 million.
- At year end, the Bell Wireless client base reached 6,833,000, an increase of 5.2% over last year.
- On a pro forma basis, postpaid and blended churn were unchanged from last year at 1.3% and 1.8% respectively while prepaid churn improved to 3.2% from 3.4% last year.
- On a pro forma basis, cost of acquisition decreased to $327 per gross activation this quarter, or 5.8% lower than last year.
More here at Bell
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15 comments for “Bell has record Q4: 523,000 new subscribers (11.3% increase)”
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Right on Bell.I bet Robers lost (Canadas most unreliable network)Rogers/Robers lost for being too lazy.
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As a bell customer, I really don’t know what to say. I’m not seeing any improvement in my service, actually it got worse. However, I’m still waiting on my defective phone to return when it used to be that bell would just send you out another refurbished blackberry so I wouldn’t have to go back and forth to the store to get a replacement.
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So with all this money and growth, why are their prices so high and service so horrible?
I’m a bell subscriber, and have been on every network. Bell is, by far, the highest priced and has the absolute most horrible service. For example what Shaun said above. With TELUS you simply tell them your phone is ‘broken’, walk into store they give you a new one and you give them the ‘broken’ one. Done.
With bell? You have to give them your phone (so you’re left without a phone unless you pay the multiple hundreds of dollars to use their shitty loaner phones) and your phone gets sent away for weeks upon weeks and then returned MAYBE fixed (sometimes they’ll end up saying they couldn’t fix it…).
I can’t wait to get away from this disgusting carrier.
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I have learned over my last 2 of my 3 year contract to despise Bell. When the new Xperia X10 comes out Bell and I are over. Very surprised by this article.
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Half a million new suckers huh? I wonder how many millions fled in that time.
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Actually, they had 523,000 gross additions, which is not the metric used to measure new customers. Net additions of 163,000 is the proper metric to look at.
The difference between the gross and net numbers are customers that cancelled. The best position for any company to be in is to have strong net additions with the smallest gap possible between net and gross.
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I’m not naming any names but I have a friend that has gone to telus three times and they have given him brand new phones every time. My phone is actually broken, it went into technocolour one time and “lleb” showed up upside down. Frequent dropped calls and then I can’t make a call afterwards unless I do a battery pull. I tell them this and they tell me I have to take my phone in for repair. I got covered for my loaner phone because I pay $7 a month in insurance. They gave me an 8830 which is old school. It may take 6-8 weeks to get it fixed according to one bell rep. I have to back up my berry, the sync it with another one, then wipe the loaner after I sync that one. Then I have to sync my phone again when it comes back. Bell’s response? We just sell the phones, we don’t make them. Whatever happened to stand by the products that you carry. I came from retail management for 10 yrs plus. If I told my customer that we don’t make defective products, we just sell them, I would expect them to be pissed. If they weren’t I’d tell them to get pissed in fact. Why does bell not understand this? I understand they bite part of the cost when they sell a phone but it’s them who are benefiting from the usage of the phone they don’t make. Not to mention to a tune of 150 bucks a month for my ridiculous bill and that’s without going over on anything. These companies don’t care about their customers, only how much more profit they can make from their customers. At least they probably don’t produce a lot of waste considering they squeeze the orange to the very lost drop.
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I wonder how much of this increase is due to unlocking the SIM card? When my contract is up, I can go with any carrier(well that includes rural area coverage).
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The 523,000 are probably the Virgin subscribers.
LoL, Bell like to inflated there numbers !
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Hopefully this will be a wake-up call for Rogers to start offering better plans.
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I’m one of the new subscribers! Bell has been pretty good and I have a great corporate plan. Wish Wind could match my plan
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Have been with Bell for over 5 years, and I have not had ANY troubles at all. Not to mention nobody can come even close to matching our Family Plan.
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can’t wait to see TELUS and Rogers #s, i bet TELUS is close, if not higher in net additions (b/c of koodo) and Rogers got killed.
Out with old rickety GSM and in with the new HSPA + WOOOOO!!!
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I am one of those.Bell has worst customer service I have ever encountered. Got so disappointed in just 3 months that I cancelled my contract and willing to pay the cancellation fee just to say good bye to Bell. Have you ever heard that your phone had to go for repair and came back with missing media card and then you are told to go buy a new one??? This happened with me. If someone is thinking to go with Bell, take my advice, you will regret it.
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I think it’s so funny that all these people hate bell but yet when they go to another provider they realize what they give up. I’ve never dealt with any company that was in the business to give there product away. If you break your phone then yes you should have to pay a fee to get it fixed. After all they are still providing a service for you(the repair, the loaner phone< the shipping and handling of your devise, etc.)
I've been with been with Bell for over 7 years and yes there have been time that I was frustrated with some of there practices but they have rules that they have to stand by thats how they make money. Stop crying people
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