Bell Q3 Results: “Record Quarter” As Subscriber Base Reaches 6,707,000
November 12, 2009
Bell has reported their Q3 numbers and according to George Cope, President & CEO he states they are coming off a “record quarter” and that they are “fundamentally transforming as a customer-focused competitor”.
"Our results this quarter showed good financial discipline throughout the business," said Siim Vanaselja, Chief Financial Officer of BCE and Bell Canada. "In a challenging economic cycle, we have continued to focus on improving the cost structure of our operations by implementing efficiency initiatives to deliver sustained improvement in the profitability of our business. Our work to drive out costs has enabled us to sustain margins, even with incremental pension costs and ongoing pressures from the current economic climate."
"While we continue to make significant capital investment for long-term growth, we have also maintained substantial cash balances and accessed the debt capital markets on attractive terms earlier this year, enabling us to readily fund all of our remaining 2010 debt maturities. With a cash balance of approximately $1.2 billion, consistently healthy free cash flow generation, and access to $1.4 billion in committed credit facilities, we maintain a strong balance sheet and liquidity position that is well aligned to growing our business and delivering shareholder value through our dividend growth model." Mr. Vanaselja said.
Bell's operating income increased by 25.9% to $583 million due to higher EBITDA and lower restructuring and other costs. Bell's EBITDA grew by 1.5% to $1,448 million as higher revenues and cost reductions more than offset the impact of higher pension expense and a significant increase in wireless subscriber activations. Excluding year-over-year increased pension costs, EBITDA growth would have been 2.9%. Bell's EBITDA margin grew slightly this quarter to 38.2% from 38.1% last year.
The Bell Wireless segment had record Q3 gross activations of 501,000 new subscribers and total net activations of 135,000. Postpaid net activations of 122,000 were a Q3 record. The 15.4% year-over-year increase in total net activations was driven by the success of new handsets, devices, services and applications.
Bell Wireless operating revenues increased by 0.3% this quarter with service revenues declining by 0.6% and product revenues increasing by 1.9%. Bell Wireless operating income and EBITDA grew by 4.7% and 0.2% respectively. Blended ARPU decreased by $2.50 to $52.13 year-over-year but improved sequentially over the previous quarter by $1.67. The year-over-year decline this quarter is representative of the impact of economic pressures on customer usage, competitive moves and lower roaming revenues, which more than offset data revenue growth of 33%.