According to Scotiabank’s analysis, Montreal-based national carrier Bell is expected to have neutral results for Q3 2019.
“We remain confident that BCE’s wireless service revenue growth will remain stable at above 2 percent and could even positively surprise,” wrote Scotiabank’s telecom analyst Jeff Fan.
Bell launched its $75 for 10GB unlimited data promo plans in order to match Rogers’ plans on June 13th.
Q3 2019 will be the first full quarter to reflect the impact of the unlimited data plans on the carriers’ revenue growth, net subscriber additions, Average Revenue Per User (ARPU), Average Billing Per User (ABPU) and churn rate.
“We believe BCE has been less impacted by unlimited data because they have been more prudent on migration to manage the overage revenue impact,” wrote Fan.
On wireless subscribers, Bell is estimated to have a postpaid net addition of 100,000 and a prepaid net addition of 60,000 for Q3 2019. In comparison to Q3 2018, Bell reported a postpaid net addition of 135,000 subscribers and a prepaid net addition of 43,000 subscribers.
The carrier is expected to have a wireless postpaid churn rate of 1.13 percent in Q3 2019, while it was 1.14 percent in the same period a year ago. Churn rate is the rate at which a subscriber leaves a carrier to subscribe to a competitor.
Scotiabank estimates that Bell’s ARPU will be $57.19 for Q3 2019, while it was $57.85 in Q3 2018. This is a predicted decline of 1.2 percent.
Additionally, the carrier will likely report an ABPU of $69.90 in Q3 2018, which is a 0.9 percent increase from the same period a year before.
Bell is scheduled to release its Q3 2019 results on October 31st.
Source: Scotiabank
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