Bell pleased with subscription numbers as it releases Q1 figures

BCE Inc. issued its first quarter 2024 results Thursday morning and featured a mixed bag of returns. Subscriptions were up, earnings were down and average revenue per user (ARPU) was constant. Postpaid wireless phone subscriptions jumped from 43,289 in Q1 2023 to 45,247 this year, an increase of 4.5 per cent. Bell’s mobile customer base is 10.2 million subscribers, 9.3 million postpaid and 844,177 prepaid subscribers. The firm expects that number to go up as it rolls out No Name cell service under the Loblaws brand. Blended ARPU for mobile was $58.14 in 2024, a penny less than a year earlier. “Fibre continues to be on a roll,” Mirko Bibic, president and CEO, said in an analyst's phone call. “We’re gaining share in all our markets because we have a superior product with a symmetrical speed advantage over cable.” To that end, the company added 31,078 new retail subscribers, up 13.9 per cent from the 27,274 of a year earlier. Total subscriptions are 4.5 million, up 5.1 per cent from Q1 2023. Bibic noted that Statistics Canada said telecom prices are falling in Canada even as inflation rises. Those numbers were confirmed by an ISED study released this week. Net earnings were $457 million, down from $788 million in Q1 2023, a plummet of 42 per cent. Cash flow was down 9.2 per cent from $1.24 million a year ago to $1.13 million this quarter. Bell added 14,174 new IPTV subscriptions, a 30 per cent hike from the 10,899 reported a year ago. Satellite subscribers are no longer being reported, as this is no longer a substantial proportion of revenues. At Bell Media, operating revenue fell as advertising increased. Revenue was $725 million, a drop of 7.1 per cent annually. Ads were up 1.6 per cent due to the interest in this year’s Super Bowl. New programming was down this year because of a strike by writers and actors against producers in the United States. “Content costs are expected to increase in these two quarters with the normalization of content deliveries from the major US studios now that the Hollywood strikes have been settled,” CFO Curtis Millen told the call. Bibic said sales of bundles are doing better than expected and that the company may exceed its projections. In wireless, 56 per cent of subscribers are now on 5G, up from 44 per cent in 2023. Analyst Aravinda Galappatthige of Canaccord Genuity was generally pleased with the results. In a note sent to subscribers, he did say that the wireless growth of three per cent was lower than his prediction of 3.7 per cent. The day before the numbers were released, Unifor, which represents thousands of BCE employees, issued an open letter to shareholders asking them to hold Bibic and his fellow directors accountable. It wants to see how Bell can regain the trust of its workers after several rounds of layoffs. “Our union is concerned about the direction of the company and its lack of respect for the working people it relies on each and every day,” the letter stated. “It is our view that, under the current board’s leadership, BCE has undertaken a re-structuring plan that threatens the well-being of the company.” – Reporting by Paul Park at ppark@thewirereport.ca

Bell pleased with subscription numbers as it releases Q1 figures

Broadcast | May 2, 2024

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Bell pleased with subscription numbers as it releases Q1 figures

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