Bell reported $5.195 billion in revenue for the past quarter up 1.9% compared to the same period a year ago, when it stood at $5.099 billion. Profit for the Q3 of this year was 83 cents per share, exceeding analyst expectations of 77.
BCE’s wireless segment has posted an incredible quarter with sales growing 7% to $1.6 billion, as the carrier added 90,976 wireless postpaid customers. However, this is a slight (1.9%) drop when compared to last year’s 102,714 new customers.
The percentage of postpaid customers totaled 6,868,818 at the end of this quarter, rising 2.8% compared to last year, and the total number of Bell customers grew 1.1% to 7,887,193.
Blended average revenue per user (ARPU) jumped 5.9% to $61.73, driven by increased data usage on the expanding Bell LTE network.
According to Bell’s press release, the carrier increased its LTE network speeds by as much as 45% across the country through spectrum aggregation. LTE coverage reached 84% of the population by the end of this quarter and the company has ambitions to reach more than 98% coverage by the end of next year, as it rolls out services in more rural locations and Canada’s North.
