Bell Canada today announced its financial results for the first quarter of 2022, ended March 31.
For its wireless business, Bell reported operating revenue of $2.210 billion, up 5.2% year-over-year as a result of a significant increase in service revenue. Wireless service revenue was up 8.7% to $1.646 billion, while product revenue for the segment was down 3.8% to $564 million. Adjusted EBIDTA for Bell’s wireless business increased 9.3% to $1.009 billion.
Bell added a total of 32,176 net new postpaid and prepaid mobile phone subscribers, up orders of magnitude from just 2,405 in Q1 2021.
“We delivered our best quarterly organic wireless service revenue growth rate in 11 years through balancing the right market share growth with operating profitability,” said Mirko Bibic, President and CEO of BCE and Bell Canada.
“In addition, our net retail Internet and IPTV subscribers activations are up 20% over last year. With our historic capital expenditure acceleration program now in its second year, we will continue to bring direct fibre connections and 5G to more locations across our footprint throughout 2022.”
Across all of its segments, Bell posted operating revenues of $5.85 billion, up 2.5% year-over-year from Q1 2021, with EBITDA growth of 6.4% to $2.584 billion. The company managed to bolster net income by a whopping 36% to $934 million.
In comparison, fellow telecom giant Rogers Communications reported a net income of $392 million for the same period, while merger-hopeful Shaw Communications saw its net earnings drop 9.7% year-over-year to $196 million during the second quarter of its fiscal 2022, ending February 28.
“Bell’s Q1 results highlight our continued momentum from 2021 into this year, demonstrating that our accelerated fibre expansion and customer experience improvements continue to offer greater value to our growing base of customers and the communities we live in,” said Bibic.
Operating revenue from wireline, on the other hand, was down 2.2% year-over-year to $3.013 billion with an adjusted EBITDA growth of 0.3% to $1.367 billion.
Wireline service revenue slid 0.8% to $2.903 billion, while product revenue dove 28.6% to $110 million.
This was the first quarter since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in which Bell Canada’s consolidated financial results surpassed pre-pandemic figures.
