Telus Corp.
raised its quarterly dividend as it reported its first-quarter profit fell compared with a year ago.
The telecommunications company says it will now make a quarterly payment to shareholders of 38.91 cents per share, up from its previous rate of 37.61 cents per share.
The increased payment to shareholders came as Telus reported net income attributable to common shares of $127-million or nine cents per share.
The result was down from a profit of $217-million or 15 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
Operating revenues and other income for the quarter totalled $4.93-billion, down from $4.96-billion in the first quarter of 2023.
On an adjusted basis, Telus says it earned 26 cents per share in its latest quarter, down from an adjusted profit of 27 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
Telus saw a total of 209,000 net customer additions across its telecom services in the first quarter, up 28.2 per cent from a year earlier and marking its strongest result on record for the three-month period, it said.
But the company’s 45,000 net mobile phone subscriber additions in the quarter was down 4.3 per cent from the same quarter a year earlier. Telus’ churn rate for mobile subscribers – a measure of subscribers who cancelled their service – was 1.13 per cent, up from 0.9 per cent during its previous first quarter, which it said was largely due to “more aggressive marketing and promotional activities.”
“These factors have been partly mitigated by our continued focus on customer retention through our industry-leading service and network quality, along with successful promotions and bundled offerings,” it said in a press release.
Telus’ mobile phone average revenue per user was $59.31, down $1.07 or 1.8 per cent from the first quarter of the prior year. The company attributed the decrease to customers increasingly subscribing to base rate plans with lower prices, along with more promotions targeting both new and existing customers.
It said those factors, along with a decline in overage revenues, were partly offset by higher roaming revenues as a result of increased travel.