Roaming revenue not expected to fully recover until 2022: Telus CFO

Telus Corp.'s ability to extract roaming revenue from its customers will not be "in full recovery" until 2022 at the earliest, chief financial officer Doug French told analysts on a Thursday quarterly earnings call. "Our current assumption is that roaming recovery will begin slowly in the second half of 2021, however the roaming recovery will be largely dependent on the pace of the global vaccine roll out and the easing of travel restrictions," French said. Telus executives said the company is also finalizing the key performance indicators (KPI) that the company will use for future reporting on the company's Health division, which has grown since the COVID-19 pandemic began a year ago. "Revenue is on the page as a discussion of a relevant KPI that we would consider showing for Health, but it's still to be finalized, in addition to obviously other KPIs that are very relevant such as any of the virtual care type measures that would be needed to assess success," French said. Elsewhere on the call, Telus chief executive officer Darren Entwistle celebrated taking Telus International public earlier this month. "This was undoubtedly a monumental achievement for our team, notably establishing an important growth currency for 's continued global expansion," Entwistle said. Responding to a question about his future plans for the company, Entwistle said he also wants to expand the other divisions of the company: agriculture, health, and security. "I would like to do with health, and security some semblance of what we've done with I won't be satisfied until we realize that particular outcome," Entwistle told analysts. Telus launched its agriculture division in November, with the aim of creating a cohesive set of technological tools that could help businesses from agricultural producers through to retailers to produce and supply food more efficiently. Telus' overall revenue for the three quarters ending December 31 climbed 5.2 per cent, up to $4.06 billion from the $3.86 billion the company pulled in the same period of 2019. The company's profit fell some 28.5 per cent to $271 million from $379 million at this time last year. "These declines reflect increased depreciation and amortization from capital assets growth, including acquisitions; declines in wireline legacy voice and legacy data services; higher non-labour-related restructuring and other costs; multiple impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic," the company wrote in its quarterly report. Wireless revenues dropped 1.8 per cent to $2.13 billion from $2.17 billion in the fourth quarter of 2019, while wireline revenue jumped 13.8 per cent to $2.01 billion from 1.77 billion a year ago. The company added 87,000 net mobile phone subscribers, a 24.3 per cent increase over the 70,000 Telus added in the final quarter of 2019, for a total of 8.95 million subscribers. The company also added some 88,000 mobile connected device subscribers, a 46.7 per cent jump from the 60,000 it added at this time last year, bringing it to a total of 1.78 million. The company's wireless average revenue per user (ARPU) fell 3.4 per cent to $57.29, down from $59.29 last year. The company attributed the declining ARPU to "reduced roaming revenue related to travel restrictions and lower chargeable data usage revenue." Meanwhile on the wireline side, Telus added 44,000 internet subscribers, a 57.1 per cent jump from the 28,000 it added last year, for a total of 2.14 million subscribers. The company also added 20,000 television subscribers, five thousand more than the 15,000 they added last year. Canaccord Genuity analyst Aravinda Galappatthige wrote in a Thursday morning note that the wireline revenue was "higher than expected," while the wireless subscriber additions were better than expected. "We believe the stronger net adds number was the result of solid retention efforts" by Telus, Galappatthige wrote. — Reporting by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca and editing by Tim Forster at tforster@thewirereport.ca

Roaming revenue not expected to fully recover until 2022: Telus CFO

News | February 11, 2021

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Roaming revenue not expected to fully recover until 2022: Telus CFO

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