Canadian national telecom BCE, better known as Bell Canada, posted its Q2 2018 earnings report on Thursday, August 2nd, 2018.
During the three month period, Bell’s wireless division added 122,092 net postpaid wireless subscribers, an increase of 37.8 percent. The carrier says that is its best performance in terms of second-quarter postpaid net additions since Q2 2000.
Similarly, wireless revenue increased by 5 percent to $2.05 billion.
As in past quarters, Bell says a more favourable mix of postpaid to prepaid customers helped increase wireless service revenue. Additionally, product revenue increased by 9.8 percent year-on-year to $472 million thanks to higher sales of “higher-value” smartphones. The carrier didn’t cite specific devices, but it’s likely smartphones like the Galaxy S9 and iPhone X helped.
However, postpaid churn, the number of customers who cut ties with the carrier, increased by 2 basis points to 1.10 percent.
Blended average billing per user increased 0.6 percent to $67.71. Bell cites a higher postpaid subscriber mix, a greater number of customers on higher-value monthly plans, increased roaming revenue and the flow-through of prices changes as causes for the increase.
The telecom finished the quarter with 8,593,113 postpaid wireless subscribers, representing a 5.7 increase year-over-year, and 9,309,534 subscribers total.
Bell also noted that at the end of Q2 89 percent of its postpaid subscribers are on its LTE network. Bell stated that its LTE-A network is now available to 90 percent of Canadians and will grow to just shy of 92 percent by the end of 2018.
Despite a strong performance by the company’s wireless division, overall Bell did worse in Q2 2018 than it did during the same time period last year. Total revenue increased a modest 1.7 percent to $5.79 billion, while net income decreased by 7.2 percent year-over-year to $755 million, down from $814 million. Analysts predicted the company would report revenue of $5.80 billion.
Source: Bell
