MONTREAL A strong performance by the wireless division of Bell Canada helped its parent company BCE Inc. to a 25 per cent jump in fourth-quarter profit, driven in no small part by its high-value mobile phone customers.
Profits rose 25.4 per cent to $439 million from $350 million in the comparable period of 2009, BCE reported Thursday.
The wireless division added almost 157,000 new customers on long-term contracts in what chief executive George Cope described as its best fourth quarter since 2002. A number of these customers were smartphone users on BlackBerrys, iPhones and Android devices — who typically generate high monthly revenue.
Cope said almost 30 per cent of its wireless customers on contracts are smartphone users, leaving plenty of room for more growth. He noted that the average monthly revenue generated by a smartphone customer is about $90.
He also said Bell now has 33 per cent of the market in customers on long-term contracts, up from 18 per cent three years ago, with Rogers and Telus sharing the remainder.
But in the lower end of the market, generally composed of prepaid phones for talking and texting, competition is fierce with new players like Public Mobile and Mobilicity. In this market, BCE didn’t fare as well.
The prepaid client base dropped by 39,926 in the quarter, compared with a gain of 52,938 in the same quarter last year, BCE said.
The Canadian Press
From www.thespec.com
