Bell Q4 2010 results takes subscriber base to 7,242,048

Bell has announced their Q4 2010 and full year results this morning. George Cope, President and CEO of BCE and Bell Canada stated that “We met all our increased financial targets for 2010… Bell Wireless has significantly increased its postpaid market share thanks to strong market execution that leverages Bell’s world-leading HSPA+ network, superior range of smartphones and other devices, enhanced data services like Bell Mobile TV and the country’s largest wireless distribution network”. Although there was a record amount of gross activations in the quarter of 552,714 the total net additions dropped 28.3% from last year to 116,782 (mainly due to the decline of Prepaid customers).

So the specifics numbers show the following Q4 results:
– Total Bell Wireless operating revenues increased by 8.3% to $1,297 million this quarter.
– Data revenue growth of 38%
– Blended ARPU (average revenue per user) increased by $1.26 to $52.34
– Postpaid ARPU increased by $1.00 to $63.47 due to growth in data usage
– Prepaid ARPU decreased by $1.49 to $16.96 due to the migration of prepaid customers to postpaid plans
– Wireless gross activations with 552,714 (increase of 5.5% from last year).
– Postpaid gross activations were 399,041 (32.9% increase)
– Prepaid gross activations were down 153,673 (31.2% from last year)
– Total net additions were 116,782 this quarter (decrease of 28.3% from last year)
– Postpaid net additions were 156,708 (up 42.6%) and prepaid client base declined by 39,926.

2010 Year:
– For the full year, total Bell Wireless operating revenues increased by 8.2% to $4,934 million
– Blended ARPU increased by $0.33 to $52.03
– Postpaid ARPU increased by $0.62 to $63.49
– Prepaid ARPU increased by $0.61 to $17.76.
– Bell Wireless client base reached 7,242,048 at the end of the quarter (up 6.0% from 2009)

Source: Bell
The conference call is currently happening, here are some slides: