By Adriano Marchese
BCE said it now expects revenue to fall in the year as mobile competition bit into performance, driving revenue down in the third quarter.
The Canadian telecom major on Thursday said that it now expects a decline of 1.5% to revenue for 2024, down from a previous range of flat to a 4% rise.
BCE cites lower-than-anticipated product revenue and sustained wireless price compression over the past year, which has increasingly put pressure on mobile phone revenues.
In the third quarter, the company posted a net loss to shareholders of 1.24 billion Canadian dollars ($889.6 million), or C$1.36 a share, compared with a profit of C$640 million, or C$0.70 a share, in the comparable quarter a year ago.
The decline was mainly due to noncash asset impairment charges of C$2.11 billion related to Bell Media's television and radio properties as ad demand and spending in the traditional advertising market continue to languish.
Adjusted earnings, which excludes these one-off items and exceptional costs, were C$0.75 a share. According to FactSet, analysts were expecting C$0.77 a share.
Operating revenues fell 1.8% to C$5.97 billion, below analysts' expectations of C$6.04 billion.
In the quarter, the company added 158,412 total mobile phone and connected device net activations, and 42,415 total retail internet net subscriber activations. In mobile, this was better than analysts expected, which had pegged prepaid and postpaid additions to reach 122,500 in the quarter, but internet subscribers were below the 66,700 expectations, according to FactSet.
BCE's shares have been under pressure recently after it announced earlier in the week that it had struck a roughly C$5 billion deal to buy regional broadband provider Ziply Fiber in the U.S. but that it would have to pause dividend increases to help revive its balance sheet.
Write to Adriano Marchese at adriano.marchese@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 07, 2024 07:40 ET (12:40 GMT)