This morning Bell announced its quarterly earnings for the first fiscal quarter of 2018, seeing growth in profit, wireless additions and its internet business.
Bell’s net profit increased 3.1% compared to the year ago quarter, reaching $709 million, while revenue grew 4.8% to $5.59 billion, falling slightly short of average analyst projections at $5.61 billion.
Wireless postpaid net additions increased a massive 91.4% compared to the year ago quarter, to 68,487 for the quarter, which helped drive higher revenue by 10.1%, for the three months ending on March 31.
According to the company, blended average billing per user (ABPU) increased 1.4% to $66.56, driven by factors like higher monthly plans with larger data buckets and increased roaming revenue.
Despite the quarterly growth for postpaid additions, Bell’s numbers still did not beat rival Rogers, which added 95,000 wireless postpaid additions in the first quarter. Even Shaw’s Freedom Mobile added more wireless postpaid customers than Bell at 93,500, in the three months ending on February 28.
Bell says its postpaid customers totalled 8,471,021 at March 31, 2018, a 4.0% increase over Q1 2017, while total wireless subscribers increased 2.8% to 9,195,048.
“With Canada’s best national mobile network, we delivered almost double the number of wireless postpaid subscribers gained in Q1 2017 and our best Q1 result since 2011.” said George Cope, President and CEO of BCE Inc. and Bell Canada, in a statement.
