BCE increased its operating revenue by nearly 3 percent, its second quarterly report for 2022 reveals.
The increase is due to growth in its service revenue, partially powered by figures in wireless and residential internet services. However, overall product revenue decreased by 4.6 percent year-over-year, reflecting lower equipment sales.
Wireless
The company’s wireless service revenue increased by 7.8 percent, largely due to the addition of 110,761 new mobile phone net subscribers, increasing this figure by nearly 140 percent year-over-year.
83,197 of the subscribers were postpaid, and the partial result of increased traffic in retail stores, growth in immigration, and the continued push for 5G. 27,564 of the total subscribers were prepaid.
These figures helped Bell grow its total mobile customer base to 9.6 million.
Similar growth was not reported with product revenue, which decreased by 0.9 percent this quarter due to fewer customers upgrading their devices.
Wireline
Bell’s service revenue for wireline services grew by only 0.6 percent. The figure is driven by revenue from residential internet customers and a regulatory charge the company saw in 2021 that was not repeated this quarter. It relates to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) backtracking on a decision to lower wholesale internet rates and implement pricing from 2019.
The company’s retail internet subscriber base grew by 28 percent year over year. Bell credits the addition of the new 22,620 subscribers to the expansion of its fibre footprint and small business performance.
This past quarter, Bell announced plans to expand its fibre internet access to thousands of homes and businesses in the coming years. This includes providing access to 160,000 locations in London, Ontario, and 5,000 in Kingsville, Ontario.
Rogers outage
Without naming the network directly, Bell’s president and CEO said Bell’s network already separates wireless and wireline networks, a move Rogers only announced it would make recently.
“Bell’s wireless and wireline networks use different network infrastructures, and they are configured such that a major disruption on the wireline network does not take down the national wireless network,” Mirko Bibic said during a conference call discussing the results.
Rogers announced its plans to separate the networks during its Q2, 2022 financial results conference call last month after a national outage impacted thousands. As MobileSyrup previously reported it could take up to 18 months to complete. The project will cost Rogers $250 million.
Source: Bell
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