Bell Canada increased its Sympatico DSL High-Speed Internet subscriber base by 32% compared to the first quarter, 2003 to reach 1.6 million subscribers. This drove higher Internet revenues of 18%. Net DSL additions of 115,000 in this quarter represent the strongest quarterly increase since 2001. During the quarter, Bell doubled the speed of its high-speed service for 75% of its customers to 3.0 Mbps - at no cost to the subscriber. And the company extended the availability of its high-speed service to 80% of customers in Quebec and Ontario and to 66% of Atlantic Canadians.
Subscriptions to Sympatico's value-added services, such as Desktop Anti-Virus and Desktop Firewall, increased by 60,000 to reach 347,000 by the end of the quarter.
- Bell Canada's wireless group added 92,000 new customers in Q1.
- Video subscribers increased by 16,000 and revenues were up 17%.
- Overall, BCE reported revenue of $4.70 billion, up 0.4% and EBITDA of $1.85 billion, up 4.1% when compared to the same period last year. Operating income increased by 3.8% to reach $1.0 billion and earnings per share were $0.51, an increase of $0.01.
- Bell's first quarter 2004 capital expenditures as a percentage of revenues (CAPEX intensity) were 14.4%, compared to the 13.1% reported last year. The higher spending mainly related to Bell's DSL footprint expansion and infrastructure that improved productivity.
