•Bell announced a collaboration with MacLean Engineering, the world's largest Canadian-based manufacturer of underground mining equipment, to advance the next generation of mining operations in Canada with Bell’s Private Mobile Network at the MacLean Research & Training Facility.
•In a strategic private sector partnership, Bell, along with Google, Desjardins, and the Fonds de solidarité FTQ, will collectively invest C$525萬 into Ax-C, a Montréal-based hub for innovative entrepreneurship created by École de technologie supérieure, that will open in 2025. The investment will build a strong and dynamic ecosystem dedicated to the growth of startups in Québec.
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Delivering the most compelling content
•Bell Media announced the expansion of its landmark partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery for the Canadian market, extending Crave for multiple years as the exclusive home of HBO and Max content. Bell Media and Warner Bros. Discovery also confirmed that they have settled all matters in their recent dispute regarding Bell Media’s suite of Discovery-branded channels.
•Bell Media secured a content and licensing agreement with NBCUniversal Global TV Distribution bringing popular channels, USA Network and Oxygen True Crime to Canada starting January 1, 2025. Also on January 1, existing specialty channels Animal Planet, Discovery Science and Discovery Velocity rebrand to CTV Wild, CTV Nature and CTV Speed respectively. A selection of popular shows from USA Network and Oxygen True Crime, along with all new series from both channels, will also be available for streaming on Crave.
•CTV has renewed The Amazing Race Canada for an eleventh season after closing out its tenth year as Canada’s most-watched summer series among adults 25-54 and a season average of 130萬 viewers.
•Bell Media announced that its TSN and RDS services, featuring live sports, are now available on Prime Video Channels in Canada, as well as Bell Media’s Crave streaming service.
Championing the customer experience
•Hadeer Hassaan was appointed Bell’s first Chief Customer Experience Officer. The role builds on Bell’s strategic imperative to champion customer experience and reinforces our customer-first approach in everything we do and our objective to create meaningful experiences across all channels.
“BCE’s Q3 results demonstrate our continued transformation efforts to drive long-term cost efficiencies and profitable subscriber growth while making strategic M&A transactions to lean into our core strengths,” said Curtis Millen, Chief Financial Officer of BCE and Bell Canada.
“Adjusted EBITDA grew 2.1%, driving a 1.7 percentage-point increase in margin to 45.6%, our highest quarterly margin in more than three decades. We saw a 4.8% reduction in operating costs this quarter, demonstrating our strong focus on driving costs out of the business. We also continue to reduce our capital expenditures, which were down $20500萬 in Q3, bringing year-to-date capex savings to more than $60000萬 and contributing to 10.3% higher free cash flow this quarter.
Given lower-than-anticipated product revenue and sustained wireless price compression over the past year, which has increasingly put pressure on mobile phone blended ARPU, we have revised our revenue guidance for 2024 downward from a range of 0% to 4% previously to a decline of approximately 1.5%. All other financial guidance targets for 2024 remain unchanged.
BCE’s balance sheet remains well-positioned with $44億 of available liquidity and pension plan solvency surpluses. As we move through the rest of the year and into 2025, we will remain focused on continued cost efficiency and margin-accretive subscriber growth, strengthening our future financial performance.”
•BCE operating revenues were $597100萬 in Q3 2024, down 1.8% compared to Q3 2023, due to a 14.3% decrease in product revenue to $68500萬. Service revenue was essentially stable, up 0.1% to $528600萬, as growth at Bell Media was effectively offset by a year-over-year decline at Bell Communication and Technology Services (Bell CTS).
•Net earnings decreased $189800萬, resulting in a net loss of $119100萬 in Q3 2024, and net loss attributable to common shareholders totalled $123700萬, or $1.36 per share, compared to net earnings attributable to common shareholders of $64000萬, or $0.70 per share, in Q3 2023. The year-over-year declines were due to non-cash asset impairment charges totalling $211300萬, mainly related to Bell Media’s TV and radio properties to reflect a further decline in advertising demand and spending in
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the traditional advertising market, as well as to higher interest expense and higher severance, acquisition and other costs. These factors were partly offset by lower income taxes, lower other expense and higher adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted net earnings were down 7.2% to $68800萬, resulting in a 7.4% decrease in adjusted EPS to $0.75.
•Adjusted EBITDA grew 2.1% to $272200萬, reflecting increases of 25.1% at Bell Media and 0.2% at Bell CTS. BCE’s consolidated adjusted EBITDA margin increased 1.7 percentage points to 45.6% from 43.9% in Q3 2023. This result was driven by a 4.8% reduction in operating costs reflecting lower cost of goods sold from decreased sales of low-margin products in the quarter, decreased labour costs attributable to workforce reduction initiatives undertaken over the past year and permanent closures of The Source stores as part of our strategic distribution partnership with Best Buy Canada, as well as technology and automation-enabled operating efficiencies across the organization.
•BCE capital expenditures were $95400萬, down 17.7% from $115900萬 last year, corresponding to a capital intensity5 of 16.0%, compared to 19.1% in Q3 2023. The year-over-year decrease is consistent with a planned reduction in capital spending attributable to slower new pure fibre footprint expansion and reflects efficiencies realized from prior investments in digital transformation initiatives.
•Total Bell CTS operating revenues in Q3 2024 decreased 3.3% to $528000萬 compared to Q3 2023, due to both lower product and service revenue.
•Service revenue was down 1.4% to $459500萬, reflecting ongoing declines in legacy voice, data and satellite TV services, greater acquisition, retention and bundle discounts on residential services compared to Q3 last year, and lower mobile phone blended average revenue per user (ARPU)7,8,9. These factors were partly offset by expansion of our mobile phone, mobile connected device and retail Internet and IPTV subscriber bases, increased sales of business solutions services to large enterprise customers, as well as the financial contribution from acquisitions made over the past year including Stratejm and CloudKettle to strengthen Bell Business Markets’ managed cybersecurity and Salesforce digital workflow automation capabilities.
•Product revenue decreased 14.3% to $68500萬, due to a reduction in consumer electronics revenue from The Source attributable to permanent store closures and conversions to Best Buy Express as part of our strategic distribution partnership with Best Buy Canada as well as soft overall consumer electronics market demand, lower
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mobile device contracted sales transaction volumes, and lower telecom data equipment sales to large business customers mainly reflecting the timing of sales.
•Bell CTS adjusted EBITDA grew 0.2% to $246800萬, yielding a 1.6 percentage-point margin increase to 46.7% from 45.1% in Q3 2023. This was driven by a 6.2% reduction in operating costs reflecting lower cost of goods sold from decreased low-margin product sales in the quarter, decreased labour costs attributable to workforce reduction initiatives undertaken over the past year and permanent closures of The Source stores, as well as technology and automation-enabled operating efficiencies across the organization.
•2024年第三季度調整後的EBITDA同比增長25.1%,達到25400萬美元,毛利率提高3.9個百分點,達到32.5%。這是由於較高運營收入的流向增加,儘管營運成本由於較高的電視內容成本和OUTEDGE Media Canada的收購而增加了4.1%,但在過去一年中進行的重組措施在一定程度上進行了抵消。
Below are descriptions of the non-GAAP financial measures that we use in this news release to explain our results as well as reconciliations to the most directly comparable IFRS financial measures.
Adjusted net earnings – Adjusted net earnings is a non-GAAP financial measure and it does not have any standardized meaning under IFRS. Therefore, it is unlikely to be comparable to similar measures presented by other issuers.
We define adjusted net earnings as net (loss) earnings attributable to common shareholders before severance, acquisition and other costs, net mark-to-market losses (gains) on derivatives
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used to economically hedge equity settled share-based compensation plans, net equity losses (gains) on investments in associates and joint ventures, net losses (gains) on investments, early debt redemption costs, impairment of assets and discontinued operations, net of tax and non-controlling interest (NCI).
We use adjusted net earnings and we believe that certain investors and analysts use this measure, among other ones, to assess the performance of our businesses without the effects of severance, acquisition and other costs, net mark-to-market losses (gains) on derivatives used to economically hedge equity settled share-based compensation plans, net equity losses (gains) on investments in associates and joint ventures, net losses (gains) on investments, early debt redemption costs, impairment of assets and discontinued operations, net of tax and NCI. We exclude these items because they affect the comparability of our financial results and could potentially distort the analysis of trends in business performance. Excluding these items does not imply they are non-recurring.
The most directly comparable IFRS financial measure is net (loss) earnings attributable to common shareholders.
The following table is a reconciliation of net (loss) earnings attributable to common shareholders to adjusted net earnings on a consolidated basis.
Certain statements made in this news release are forward-looking statements. These statements include, without limitation, statements relating to BCE’s financial guidance (including revenue, adjusted EBITDA, capital intensity, adjusted EPS and free cash flow), the proposed acquisition by Bell Canada of Ziply Fiber, the expected timing and completion thereof, certain potential benefits expected to result from the proposed acquisition including the expected number of Ziply Fiber fibre locations to be added to Bell’s fibre footprint upon closing of the proposed acquisition, the expected number of combined Ziply Fiber and Bell Canada fibre locations upon closing of the proposed acquisition as well as targeted to be reached by the end of 2028, the proposed disposition of BCE’s ownership stake in MLSE, the expected timing and completion thereof and the planned access for Bell Media to content rights for the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors for the next 20 years through a long-term agreement with Rogers, certain benefits expected to result from the acquisition of HGC, BCE’s 2024 annualized common share dividend, its intention to maintain such dividend at the current level during 2025 and the potential future resumption of common share dividend growth, BCE’s network deployment plans and related planned capital expenditures, BCE’s planned focus for the rest of 2024 and for the beginning of 2025 on continued cost efficiency and margin-accretive subscriber growth, BCE’s business outlook, objectives, plans and strategic priorities, and other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by the words assumption, goal, guidance, objective, outlook, project, strategy, target, commitment and other similar expressions or future or conditional verbs such as aim, anticipate, believe, could, expect, intend, may, plan, seek, should, strive 和框架。有關詳細信息,請參閱UBS集團報酬報告將. All such forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the 『safe harbour』 provisions of applicable Canadian securities laws and of the United States 前瞻性聲明存在固有的風險和不確定性,是基於多種可能引起實際結果或事件與我們的期望不符的假設。這些聲明並不能保證未來的業績或事件,並警告您不要依賴於任何此類前瞻性聲明。 本新聞稿中的前瞻性聲明描述了貝爾公司在本新聞稿發佈日期的預期,因此,在此之後可能會發生變化。除非適用的證券法要求,貝爾不承擔任何更新或修訂本新聞稿中包含的任何前瞻性聲明的義務,不論是否有新信息、未來事件或其他情況。擬議交易的時間和完成需要滿足終止權和其他風險和不確定性,包括但不限於完成確認性盡職調查、獲得融資和監管批准。因此,無法保證擬議交易將會發生,或者按照本新聞稿所描繪的條款、條件和時間發生。擬議的交易可能會被修改、重組或終止。也無法保證擬議交易的預期戰略效益將會實現。.