Bell Mobility, TELUS and MTS Canada Q1 2008 Results
Along with Rogers, Bell and TELUS are the only national operators in Canada; MTS offers services in Manitoba state only. The three national operators remained fairly close in terms of customer numbers with 1.92m separating them at the end of Q1 08. This has changed little in the past three years, with a total range of 1.67m at the end of Q1 05, 1.72m at the end of Q1 06 and 1.87m a year later.
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Bell, TELUS and MTS: Monthly ARPU (Can$), Quarterly Average
However, the distribution of the gap between first and third has changed substantially.
At the end of Q1 06, Rogers was 0.83m ahead of Bell, which was 0.89m ahead of TELUS. Since then, TELUS has closed on Bell while Rogers has pulled away from its rival. At the end of Q1 07, Bell was 0.68m ahead of TELUS and Rogers had extended its lead to 1.19m. At the end of the latest quarter, TELUS was only 0.59m behind Bell, while Rogers was 1.33m clear.
TELUS recorded the market’s best result for quarterly net additions in Q1 08 with 88.4k, ahead of Rogers with 74k and Bell with just 34k. At the end of the quarter, Rogers had 7.58m customers compared to 6.25m for Bell and 5.66m for TELUS. Meanwhile, MTS had 0.40m. In terms of annual growth, MTS was the fastest growing in the 12 months to 31st March 2008 with a 10.8% growth rate, although TELUS was only just behind with 10.0%. Both saw slight declines compared to the prior 12 months, when MTS grew 11.6% and TELUS 11.5%. Rogers’ fall was more dramatic, from 10.4% to 7.9%. Bell was the slowest growing with a 7.4% annual increase in customers, although it was the only operator of the four to record an improvement in growth (1.6pp).
Rather than focus on raw customer growth, Canadian operators have been aiming to squeeze value out of their existing customers. However, Q1 08 ARPU figures were disappointing, with Bell’s ARPU remaining unchanged compared to Q1 07 at Can$52.00 and TELUS seeing a 10 cent loss to Can$61.90. MTS was also down 60 cents to Can$54.80. This is in contrast to Rogers’ Q1 08 ARPUs, which hit record highs, helping it to a 21% increase in operating profit. By contrast, Bell only saw a 2% rise in EBITDA (to Can$410m) and TELUS a 3% EBITDA gain (to Can$612m).
Posted to the site on 14th May 2008
This article was extracted from The Mobile World Briefing, the weekly newsletter from The Mobile World.
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