Network upgrades will pay off

Article Excerpt

TELUS CORP. $45 (Toronto symbol T; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 590.6 million; Market cap: $26.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.1; Dividend yield: 4.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Av erage; www.telus.com) now expects to spend a total of $3.0 billion in 2017 on upgrades to its wire less and high-speed Internet networks. That’s up from its earlier forecast of $2.9 billion. The increase is mostly because the company recently purchased part of Manitoba Telecom’s wireless business, including subscribers and retail stores. In all, Telus paid BCE $300 million for those assets. Meantime, Telus lost 9,000 wireless subscribers in the first quarter of 2017, net of cancella tions. Currently, it has 8.6 million subscribers. Demand for the company’s basic cellphone services continues to decline. However, Telus is signing a growing number of its users to moreprofitable long-term contracts. It added 44,000 of those users (net of cancellations) in the quarter. The company also did a good job of hanging on its long-term…