BCE and Telus are top telecom buys

Article Excerpt

BCE INC. $53.97 (Toronto symbol BCE; Shares o/s: 898.0 million; Market cap: $48.4 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Divd. yield: 5.6%; www.bce.ca) is Canada’s largest traditional telephone service provider: it has 3.1 million residential customers in Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba and the Atlantic provinces. The company also has 3.9 million high-speed Internet users and 2.8 million TV subscribers. In addition, BCE sells wireless services to 9.5 million users across Canada and owns TV and radio stations. The company continues to benefit from ongoing improvements to its networks, which help to attract new customers. In the three months ended September 30, 2018, BCE signed 135,323 wireless customers to long-term contracts (net of cancellations). That’s a 15.5% gain over the 117,172 new users for the year-earlier quarter. The company also added 40,091 customers for its Fibe TV business and 47,749 customers for its high-speed Internet service. Both numbers are net of cancellations. Thanks to these gains, revenue in the quarter climbed 3.2%, to $5.88 billion from $5.70 billion…