BCE INC. $54.16 (Toronto symbol BCE; Shares outstanding: 847.9 million; Market cap: $45.7 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 4.8%; www.bce.ca) is Canada’s largest provider of telephone, Internet and wireless services. It also offers satellite and Internet TV across the country.
In the three months ended June 30, 2015, BCE’s earnings per share rose 6.1%, to $0.87 from $0.82 a year earlier. Revenue increased 2.0%, to $5.33 billion from $5.22 billion.
BCE gained 22,110 wireless subscribers, net of losses, in the latest quarter. It signed up 61,033 new users under long-term contracts, up 72.5% from a year earlier. That’s important, as these customers tend to use smartphones, which generate higher monthly fees than regular cellphones.
Meantime, the company is seeing strong demand for its TV offerings: it now has over one million subscribers to its Fibe TV service, more than double the 479,430 it had at the start of 2014.
The stock trades at 16.3 times BCE’s forecast 2015 earnings of $3.33 a share. The $2.60 dividend yields a high 4.8%.
BCE is still a safety-conscious buy.
