After Rogers and Bell, the time has come for the third major wireless player, Telus, to report its quarterly earnings, which are pretty impressive compared to the other two incumbents and, as the company executive chair Darren Entwistle puts it, mark a “positive start to 2015”.
In the first three months of 2015, Telus’ net profit grew by 10% compared to the same period a year ago, to $415 million, while operating revenue is up 4.6% to $3 billion compared to $2.8 billion reported for Q1 2014.
Darren Entwistle, TELUS Executive Chair said “The positive start to 2015 continues to reflect our team’s world-leading engagement and ongoing commitment to delivering the best customer experience amongst our global telecom industry peers each and every day. Our strong results underscore the efficacy of our 15 year strategy focusing on the growth of wireless and wireline data technologies and services. This focus, combined with client service excellence, continues to support our ongoing ability to return significant amounts of cash to our shareholders through our multi-year share purchase and dividend growth programs.”
As highlighted in the press release, Telus’ wireless revenue is up 6.4% ($92 million) to $1.54 billion for the first three months of the year, driven by a 19% increase in data revenue due to consistent subscriber growth. Telus added 37,000 net postpaid subscribers between January and March.
As of end of March 2015, Telus’ wireless subscriber base was 8.3 million, up 3.1% (or 250,000) compared to a year ago. This has contributed to a higher ARPU for the first quarter – $62.34, up 3.2% – reflecting Telus’ eighteenth consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth.
