Canada's Telus Quarterly Profits Down Slightly

­Canada's Telus Corp. has reported 3rd-quarter profits of C$280 million (US$263 million), a decrease of 2% on the year ago period. Excluding income tax-related adjustments, net profit was down seven percent, and when further excluding restructuring costs profits were down two percent.

Operating revenue was C$2.4 billion (US$2.26 billion), a decrease of C$39 million from last year. Total customer connections of 11.9 million were 326,000 higher than a year ago due to wireless, TELUS TV and high speed Internet growth. The revenue decrease reflects continued declines in voice revenues. Data and wireless revenues grew modestly affected by a weak economic environment and intense competition.

EBITDA decreased by five per cent primarily due to lower revenues, higher defined benefit pension plan expenses and higher restructuring costs from ongoing operating efficiency initiatives.

Robert McFarlane, Telus executive vice-president and CFO said that "while we continue to appropriately focus on investing in cost reduction initiatives given the economic and competitive environment, we are at an exciting inflection point in respect of our major growth investments as we transition into the commercialization phase of our wireless and wireline broadband expansion initiatives. As a result, we expect capital expenditures to peak in the second half of 2009, while subscriber growth in wireless, Internet and TV should accelerate."

Net wireless subscriber additions of 125,000 decreased 29% from the same period a year ago, when excluding the deactivation of subscribers from the turndown of the analogue network one year ago, but improved 13% sequentially. The year-over-year decrease was primarily due to current churn of Koodo subscribers being at normal levels, whereas a year ago there was minimal churn given its then recent service launch, and reduced prepaid customers. Postpaid net additions were 131,000, while prepaid net losses were 6,000.

Wireless ARPU declined by 7.3% to C $59.45 (US$55.86) compared to the same quarter a year ago, but continued to reflect the usual sequential seasonal improvement. The fast-growing data component of C $12.05 represented 20% of ARPU.

Posted to the site on 6th November 2009