Heavy investments spur customer growth

Article Excerpt

BCE INC. $53.59 (Toronto symbol BCE; Shares outstanding: 898.0 million; Market cap: $48.1 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 5.6%; www.bce.ca) is Canada’s largest traditional telephone service provider: it has 3.2 residential million customers in Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba and the Atlantic provinces. The company also has 3.8 million high-speed Internet users and 2.8 million TV subscribers. In addition, BCE sells wireless services to 9.2 million users across Canada. In the quarter ended March 31, 2018, overall revenue climbed 4.8%, to $5.59 billion from $5.34 billion a year earlier. Earnings rose 2.3%, to $719 million from $703 million a year earlier. Due to more shares outstanding, per-share profits were unchanged at $0.80. The company’s heavy investments in its wireless and Internet networks continue to pay off. BCE signed 68,487 wireless customers to long-term contracts (net of cancellations) in the latest quarter. That’s a gain of 91.4% over the 35,782 new users a year earlier. The company also added 13,573 customers for its Fibe…