BCE and Telus expand in key market

Article Excerpt

BCE INC. $59.10 (Toronto symbol BCE; Shares outstanding: 868.1 million; Market cap: $50.8 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 4.6%; 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 March 31, 2016, the company’s earnings per share rose 1.2%, to $0.85 from $0.84 a year earlier. Revenue increased slightly, to $5.27 billion from $5.24 billion. Revenue from wireless services (30% of the total) rose 5.3% as the company’s network upgrades continued to attract new subscribers. BCE also benefited from the rising use of smartphones. It can charge higher service fees for those devices than for regular cellphones. Sales for BCE’s wireline business (57% of total revenue) fell just 1.5% on strong growth from Fibe TV. There are 1.2 million subscribers to that service. BCE also has 1.5 million satellite TV users. BCE has now made a $3.1 billion takeover offer for Manitoba…