Bell adds 107,265 postpaid subscribers in Q3 2016

BCE announced its Q3 2016 this morning, with the company reporting $800 million CAD in net earnings, a modest 1.1 percent increase from the $791 million it made the same period last year.

From a wireless perspective, however, the company did exceptionally well. Not only did revenue increase 4.3 percent to $1.8 billion, after accounting for subscriber churn the company managed to add 107,265 postpaid subscribers, a staggering 38.1 percent increase from Q3 2015. Bell says that number is its best since 2012.

Gross postpaid additions totaled 381,630, an increase of 7.9 percent over Q3 2015. The company credits its fast network, “strong sales execution” and the launch of high profile of devices like the iPhone 7 for helping to attract customers.

In addition, postpaid churn, the percentage of customers switching from the carrier to one of its competitors, improved a modest 0.05 percentage points to 1.26 percent.

All told, the company now has 7,578,334 postpaid customers, a 4 percent year on year increase. Bell notes that the number of postpaid subscribers with smartphones increased to 82 percent, up from 78 percent from the same period last year. 78 percent of the company’s postpaid customers are now on its LTE network. Total Bell Wireless subscriber numbers are now at 8,380,949.

Finally, blended ARPU, or average revenue per customer, increased 3.7 percent to $67.76, which Bell says was driven by “a higher percentage of customers on 2-year plans, a greater mix of postpaid smartphone subscribers in the total subscriber base, and increased data usage on our 4G LTE and LTE-A mobile networks.”

In a surprising bit of non-wireless news, Bell also notes in its earnings report that there are now more than 1 million CraveTV subscribers.

Overall, the company did well this past quarter and is positioned to end the year strongly.

Related: Bell reports strong Q2 results: wireless subscriber base now tops 8,280,000

[source]Bell[/source]